Taking stock of achievements is a subjective matter, of course. I often wonder about the wisdom of such thinking. However, when one takes the subject matter down to its component parts, it is interesting to see what remains once some sifting (see ‘fossicking‘) has been done. Achievements for me are seen in the microscopic view that I appear to have in many other walks of life, placed as I am in a position where I seem to study nuance and minutiae far more than I do broad canvas. Do not get me wrong, I love the ‘bigger picture’, in terms of seeing things in perspective and on a widening sky, but it is through the surgeon’s eye I seem to be cursed to observe life, and in it being life therefore, the pool of subject matter for the writer.
I keep a flat expression, a neutral face, a steady arm and eye. I modulate my voice and do so to the point where it relaxes and brings forward an empathy in my companion that lets them tell their story, their life, their parchment narrative staked out over the pegs, where their own singular history is written. I like this, this warming, and it is evident from my interlocutors’ responses that they do too. Each person loves to talk about themselves, and they are far more wont to do so to people who show a genuine interest in what it is they have to say, rather than paying them elementary lip service that will reduce their self-perception. The cocktail party shuffle, the nose-in-the-air ‘…and what do you do?’ inquiry, before the glassing over of the eyes even before you can begin to say something entertaining but irrelevant, as whatever you do say will be taken down in evidence and will be used against you in courtly circles.
I say ‘cursed’ to observe, but of course I mean ‘blessed’. It is a joy to witness the vagaries and differences of your source material, that of the livestock base of humankind, amongst which of course are congenital jewels and gemstones within which much pleasure and humility may be gained, not only as a writer and an observer, but as a fellow human being. I’m talking about friends, and acquaintances who become friends in that osmotic process where we feed up through the mesh of one another’s defences and step through the minefields set to trap and deter the unwary and the unwanted. My party-talk stopper has been and will continue to be on occasion, no matter my urbane appearance or softness of speech, should I be met by a smart-arse cocktail party bore bearing drinks or over-paid-for spectacles, my choice of career label often being the same. ‘Freelance rapist.’ It usually does the trick, removing said potential imposition within seconds and allowing me to converse and fraternise with far more desirable types within a conducive milieu. Unpleasant? Possibly. But socially, in terms of achievement? It’s up there for me with good trips I’ve made to take-way restaurants, monosodium-glutamate dreaming, satisfying cups of tea, and dinners slick with deep rich gravy made from the meat.
The purpose with writing in this form or any other is, in some sense a form of meandering, until the stream becomes a river and then the river reaches the tide. It is only when matters become estuarine that one can see the salts and silts distilling with the fresh, and it only then that you see some kind of light, an illumination, shining down from the shoreline sky.
[…] being. I could not understand its definition, ‘I am’, and that Martini question, ‘What do you do?’ I could not see for one moment how this applied itself to the notion of ambition, rather […]