I hate writing. And I love it, too. There are few other activities (though prayer would be among them) that I dread beginning so much, that engross me so thoroughly in the act, and that yield such satisfaction after the task is complete.

The intensity of this dread, involvement, and satisfaction is due to the fact that we believe writing well requires skillful use of our essential self, more so than most other things we do. Hence the extreme vulnerability we feel in sharing writen work with others--we sense that our efforts are a reflection of ourselves. This is not to say that good writing is always or even usually about "expressing ourselves," but that expressing whatever our topic--whatever it may be--requires a kind of personal excellence above and beyond what is needed for sweeping, watching a film, or chatting with our neighbor.

This is nonsense, I think. Excellence of character can be demonstrated in any kind of activity and we do ourselves no favors by cordoning off some kinds of behaviors as potentially "high" and "meaningful" while relegating others to the categories of the ho-hum workaday. Good God, brushing your teeth is no ho-hum business--you are alive, you feel the bristles on your gums, you make yourself clean or else you decide not to for some other reason! In any case, you--yes, you yourself--are invested!

Fair enough. But there is a point to be made that, while writing is just one sort of activity through which we can demonstrate personal excellence, it is one that is more regularly, intentionally approached in this manner. The analogy with prayer is a useful one: Paul tells us we ought to pray unceasingly, in all things, but most of us still place extra emphasis on those times before bed or over bread when we intentionally bow our heads.

This chapter of the website/story is devoted to some moments over the last few years in which I've bowed intentionally with the pen or keyboard. The title of my major is "Philosophy and Creative Writing," so some of what traditionally goes by label "creative" is included here, namely fiction and poetry. I don't like much of it much, but here they are nonetheless.

In all of these examples, there is at least the attempt to live up to Bacon's ideal: writing maketh the exact man. We write (like we pray) in large part to find out who we are. The business of actually putting ink on a page or pixels on a screen, while it influences the shape our expressions take (the medium is always part of the message), is a subsidiary matter; I don't believe the real self is created so much as discovered, though Lord knows we can create plenty of stand-in selves. The fact is, though, that most of us lack the mental discipline and attention span to discover who we are through unaided reflection; we need crutches. Beautiful crutches.