Now this question is usually answered easily enough, expressed differently from writer to writer of course and the response will generally follow the same logic: It's what I was born to do/ I wouldn't be doing anything else/ I knew it was what I wanted to do as soon as I started reading as a kid etc. Published authors of course all share a passion for books, they enjoy reading and -over time- they formulated characters, scenarios and backgrounds that would only be expressed if they were to put pen to paper; for them to reach out and grab the reader and shake her profusely, while shouting maniacally that it's this guy whose problems they should focus on, this relationship, that murder and so on. It's a nagging of voices heard by no other, an overflow of people unborn to whom birth can only be given via the written word from writer to reader.
A short while ago I started reading the postmodern novel If on a Winter's Night a Traveller... by the Italian writer, Italo Calvino. I've nearly finished it and will certainly be reviewing it, but for now I'm going to touch on it here. The novel focuses on the reader as the central character, but the commentary is from the perspective of Calvino himself, which is where thoughts leak and sentiments over reading and what it means to be a reader or writer are discussed amongst the characters. It's not only invigorated me as a reader but the images conjured on occasion remind me of philosophical novels like The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. I slowly formulated my own image of the relationship: A valley, uncrossable by either party, but the writer has timber, nails and the knowledge of carpentry and it is through this skill set that he can allow the two parties to meet. The writer writes into the days that die into nights and seasons pass slowly. The reader waits, yearning for the writer's thoughts while the writer drives himself mad wanting to impart those thoughts to the reader. Over time the bridge is completed, the structure is built, but sadly, there remains work to be done; planks are missing, the timber is broken in some places: A second draft is needed. And so the writer writes and -eventually, the bridge is finished and upon meeting the reader, the writer feels relief wash over him as the chatter of voices unheard dies down as conflicts are settled.
This rambling of psuedo-philosophy on my part serves only to highlight a second characteristic of writers: the idea of centrality, the absoluteness of the written word that for writers is omnipresent. Books and the professional reading/writing of them is of complete importance to a professional author. You could say that it is the meaning of their very life. Their meaning of life one could say, is to write books, to pass ideas and tales onto a ravenous public waiting to devour their fantasies.
The meaning of life is inevitably where my imagination took me after thinking this and what life means to me, because I of course exist outside of my reading/writing habits: I have a job alongside this, I have friends, family, other hobbies and I'm certain that authors who I admire have the exact same things going on in their lives, so why the focus on this medium of communication? Personally I would suggest looking at any other medium of communication for analysis. Take film for example: a film director (like Quentin Tarantino for instance,) will see a desire to impart upon a set of people a tale, a cast of characters, brought to life by actors, who -through a desire so akin to his directors'- seek only to bring to life as many interesting personas as they possibly can and it is through this prism that we see an identical glimmer of desire, a passion. No matter where you look, you see desire, the raw, primal instinct to just want to do something that brings pleasure to the agent. But is it more than even this? Is this merely the means to an end?
An Aside
A short while ago I wrote an opinion piece, in which I sought to disprove everything UKIP was saying before the local elections in May this year. I did that because I saw a disingenuousness in their politics, a representation of everything that I hate in humans, wherever it might be found and that is a brand of ignorance that is inexcusable, an ignorance of truth in the so-called Age of Information. Arthur C Clarke in the 1970s predicted that one day satellites would bring the accumulated knowledge of the human race "to our fingertips." The Internet came and changed our lives forever and in doing so it made us more informed, or at least offered a way in which power could be held to account more readily, the tide of propaganda and populism stalled if only a little easier than had been previously possible. In short: to be informed today is easier than it ever has been, because source material can be more easily traced.
Returning to the crux of this essay, the knowledge that can be gathered, the data that can be readily accessed by anyone with a computer and modem can be married with the desire to tell fictions. What are fictions, but truths wrapped in the clothes of lies? What do authors do but philosophise over issues near and dear to them. The War of the Worlds was written from the standpoint of anti-imperialism; Starship Troopers was written from a pro-nuclear testing viewpoint and Cloud Atlas was written from ideas surrounding continuity, the rise and fall of humanity and how struggles so akin to one another thread through time immemorial. At the end of the day, the meaning of life for authors seems to be to give ideas to people, clad in the beautiful prose of an armour-peircing bullet designed to penetrate and influence the deepest parts of us, our souls if you will, for the better, or at least the idea of betterment, from the writer's perspective.
But ideas must germinate from something, they don't pop out of the air, but rather they grow from the fertile soil of a mind that is willing to think. And it is here where the two ideas meet. It was when I brought these two ideas together that I realised my meaning of life is not to write or even to read, but rather to know. To learn things, to keep learning as often as possible. I've long believed that knowledge is the key to happiness and fulfilment, because to know is to be informed and to be informed is to be privy to the truth, which in turn means that you have not been drawn into false notions of what exists inside your perceptions. We all see the same events, we hear about them on the radio, we see them on the TV and we hear politicians debate them in the House of Commons. But even though we see and hear the same thing, seldom do we perceive the same thing, but rather one man will jump to conclusions (such as those I accused UKIP of,) while the man who is informed will say otherwise, will challenge what he sees on first sight as often as possible and while I don't want this essay to turn political at this point, and I of course acknowledge that I myself can/has/will commit the same shortsighted offences I've accused others of in the past, I still wish to be informed, I want to know and above all, I desire an outlet for original thought that comes from my perceptions, to forge originality from the material of what I perceive, be it in fiction or in fact.
Ultimately, to write is to create and to read is to discover. One can easily become informed and politically aware through simply checking up on facts, using the Internet as an indispensable tool, or seeking them out wherever they might be lurking, but to engage in fiction and to use it to create your own is special, because with fictional works there often comes a truth inside it. There's a philosophy inside of most books/films/music, and it is through these prisms that our understanding of the world is enhanced, because anyone can live a life, can check a fact, can become knowledgable on what has happened before, and can use this to explain what's happening in the present: but what can you say about it? At the end of the day, our lives are fragments of time, perceived through eyes in a blink that are connected to minds unique, so why not engage them in rewriting that which might have failed us? To improve on what's already gone wrong? To learn? If you were to tell the world one story, to leave a piece of advice, a poem or even a comment, what would it say?
The meaning of life is inevitably where my imagination took me after thinking this and what life means to me, because I of course exist outside of my reading/writing habits: I have a job alongside this, I have friends, family, other hobbies and I'm certain that authors who I admire have the exact same things going on in their lives, so why the focus on this medium of communication? Personally I would suggest looking at any other medium of communication for analysis. Take film for example: a film director (like Quentin Tarantino for instance,) will see a desire to impart upon a set of people a tale, a cast of characters, brought to life by actors, who -through a desire so akin to his directors'- seek only to bring to life as many interesting personas as they possibly can and it is through this prism that we see an identical glimmer of desire, a passion. No matter where you look, you see desire, the raw, primal instinct to just want to do something that brings pleasure to the agent. But is it more than even this? Is this merely the means to an end?
An Aside
A short while ago I wrote an opinion piece, in which I sought to disprove everything UKIP was saying before the local elections in May this year. I did that because I saw a disingenuousness in their politics, a representation of everything that I hate in humans, wherever it might be found and that is a brand of ignorance that is inexcusable, an ignorance of truth in the so-called Age of Information. Arthur C Clarke in the 1970s predicted that one day satellites would bring the accumulated knowledge of the human race "to our fingertips." The Internet came and changed our lives forever and in doing so it made us more informed, or at least offered a way in which power could be held to account more readily, the tide of propaganda and populism stalled if only a little easier than had been previously possible. In short: to be informed today is easier than it ever has been, because source material can be more easily traced.
Returning to the crux of this essay, the knowledge that can be gathered, the data that can be readily accessed by anyone with a computer and modem can be married with the desire to tell fictions. What are fictions, but truths wrapped in the clothes of lies? What do authors do but philosophise over issues near and dear to them. The War of the Worlds was written from the standpoint of anti-imperialism; Starship Troopers was written from a pro-nuclear testing viewpoint and Cloud Atlas was written from ideas surrounding continuity, the rise and fall of humanity and how struggles so akin to one another thread through time immemorial. At the end of the day, the meaning of life for authors seems to be to give ideas to people, clad in the beautiful prose of an armour-peircing bullet designed to penetrate and influence the deepest parts of us, our souls if you will, for the better, or at least the idea of betterment, from the writer's perspective.
But ideas must germinate from something, they don't pop out of the air, but rather they grow from the fertile soil of a mind that is willing to think. And it is here where the two ideas meet. It was when I brought these two ideas together that I realised my meaning of life is not to write or even to read, but rather to know. To learn things, to keep learning as often as possible. I've long believed that knowledge is the key to happiness and fulfilment, because to know is to be informed and to be informed is to be privy to the truth, which in turn means that you have not been drawn into false notions of what exists inside your perceptions. We all see the same events, we hear about them on the radio, we see them on the TV and we hear politicians debate them in the House of Commons. But even though we see and hear the same thing, seldom do we perceive the same thing, but rather one man will jump to conclusions (such as those I accused UKIP of,) while the man who is informed will say otherwise, will challenge what he sees on first sight as often as possible and while I don't want this essay to turn political at this point, and I of course acknowledge that I myself can/has/will commit the same shortsighted offences I've accused others of in the past, I still wish to be informed, I want to know and above all, I desire an outlet for original thought that comes from my perceptions, to forge originality from the material of what I perceive, be it in fiction or in fact.
Ultimately, to write is to create and to read is to discover. One can easily become informed and politically aware through simply checking up on facts, using the Internet as an indispensable tool, or seeking them out wherever they might be lurking, but to engage in fiction and to use it to create your own is special, because with fictional works there often comes a truth inside it. There's a philosophy inside of most books/films/music, and it is through these prisms that our understanding of the world is enhanced, because anyone can live a life, can check a fact, can become knowledgable on what has happened before, and can use this to explain what's happening in the present: but what can you say about it? At the end of the day, our lives are fragments of time, perceived through eyes in a blink that are connected to minds unique, so why not engage them in rewriting that which might have failed us? To improve on what's already gone wrong? To learn? If you were to tell the world one story, to leave a piece of advice, a poem or even a comment, what would it say?
