Book Revision Sessions 2 - On Writing

I find myself, this morning, thinking about writing itself, wondering about what it is I am doing, and thinking about this decision to do it publicly.  It seems like I should be revising my book and preparing the finished product to present to the world.  And yet, the world is such a mixed bag.  How do I prepare anything for "the world"?  It's tricky.  And I cannot bring myself to do that this morning.

Over the last decade, I estimate that I have written somewhere between 1.5M - 2M words.  Maybe more.  And the vast majority of those words have been the inner workings of my own soul.  They were never intended for the world.  They were written, in fact, with the intent of being destroyed.  And that was a lot of work, though I didn't think of it as work.  I was just following a yearning - a question.  And I must admit that I have been good for little more than scribbling for a long time.   There have been days when I awoke early in the morning and grabbed my notebook and began to write - to ask questions - to write down what felt like answers, to make connections; and I wrote for 16 hours straight, barely stopping to eat and use the restroom, and then went to bed and awoke the next morning only to do it again.  And the whole of it, you might say, was one long prayer - the question of my very own soul.  And I came to see things that I never imagined, things which I had never heard a man say.

And now I am supposed to show you wisdom, to encapsulate the stars.  Impossible!  For the moment I do so, the moment it is written down, it will be false.  For you view it through a thousand lenses and what is food for one will be poison to another.  But what else is there to do but to try.  For a man, when he truly comes to have something to say, must say it or it will rot within him and canker his soul.  Already, I have waited too long.  I have wished to prepare conclusions - to give you answers.  But I am afraid that that is impossible.  The best that I can do is open the door and invite you in to look at the world through my eyes.

And I am out of time...  Who knows if I'll get back to the revision tomorrow...