Resuscitation

I am at that point in the summer where I confront images of the new school year. Some of these images come in anxiety dreams; others I conjure deliberately. Either way, I am reflecting on how I will approach writing this year. I typically drive my students to write a lot and to explore new approaches to their writing. I encourage them to step out of the staid forms they have used before. In this reflection I can't help but make some observations on my own approaches to writing.

I have engaged in writing sporadically and with little self-examination in recent years. I started this blog to create a forum where I could write prolifically and with attention to the craft. I did not succeed in this effort. I narrowed the topic too stringently and managed my daily life in a way not conducive to writing. Working through the declining years of a troubled marriage, I stretched myself across too many interests and activities to maintain a writer's life. Now that a year has passed since my marriage ended, it is time to resuscitate this blog.

I will implement the very approaches that I teach in the classroom: write copiously and attend to the craft. Like running, I must write regularly and abundantly to improve. Writing to just write isn't enough either. I need to use writing as a vehicle to explore questions and express ideas that I am passionate about. Each week or so, I will turn out some sort of writing whether an essay, a review, or even a narrative. The level of polish will vary as will the success of each work. But, the writing will be done.

In the title Cursor Invictus I have attempted to take the activity of running as a metaphor or a value upon which I can engage life. While I still think there is value in this approach, it is too narrow of a topic and, at best, operates as one virtue on a field of contending values. As an atheist, I take on the task of exploring the rich values available to us as human beings on this pale blue dot. In subsequent posts I will embark on an exploration of the virtues I find most meaningful and intriguing. I will interrogate their limitations and contradictions. I will mine out their beauty and usefulness from lived experience. I will attempt to give form to my own ineffable encounters with the lived world. To engage in value creation.

I had the privilege of having lunch with a visiting friend the other day. Our conversation circled around writing and the obstacles that get in the way: time, perfectionism, anxieties about audience, or even wondering about how our writing might be received. By the time we finished we both agreed that in the end you just have to say, "fuck it" and write!