I know I’m doing well when I start to disagree with therapy-speak posts on social media. The trouble now is that I disagree with a lot of things and find it difficult to articulate why. A dear friend (you may read her captivating newsletter here) responded to my concern by saying, “We know how to be nice to people, but we’re not taught how to criticise well.” Every roadblock I’ve hit of late, in academic writing especially, has been a result of this inarticulation and the temptation to resort to a rushed, offhanded comment instead of really considering the matter at hand. Pettiness is useless, offers no critique, and pinches at the gut. I am trying to figure out how to get there.
A lot of it comes down to humility, I think. I only understood this when I read Dear Sugar’s advice to a struggling writer:
“The most fascinating thing to me about your letter is that buried beneath all the anxiety and sorrow and fear and self-loathing, there’s arrogance at its core. It presumes you should be successful at twenty-six, when really it takes most writers so much longer to get there. It laments that you’ll never be as good as David Foster Wallace—a genius, a master of the craft—while at the same time describing how little you write. You loathe yourself, and yet you’re consumed by the grandiose ideas you have about your own importance. […] I know it’s hard to write, darling. But it’s harder not to.
The call for humility reminds me of the following Philip Larkin poem. I like the inviting tone that is at the same time assertive, and the air that questions (like a friend). I like the admission of previous “courages” having failed (and wonder what they might have been) and the ironic pride in one’s humility. I don’t understand most of the final stanza, but I can tell that it’s hopeful, and for that I’m grateful.
This newsletter truly grounds me, and appears to chart my emotional landscape each month. I have no idea what I will have understood next month, which is amazing and slightly scary. There is no way to force understanding. It has to dawn on one. I will wait.
I love these paintings by Michele Poirier Mozzone, discovered here on It’s Nice That. Sometimes I think they are the same woman, other times I wonder if they’re facing each other.
Words, clear like crystal. Just as delicately perfect. I love this. I'm also very giddy about being a part of this issue.