Letter 12 April 2020

Dear No One,

Once again, a month has gone by and as a last recourse, I am writing to you because it is the simplest form of free writing that I want to post. Strange to think how sure I was in March that soon enough I would get my schedule together and start writing. That soon I will get this and that and the other thing done and I will start feeling like a writer. Yet here I am on the last day of April writing an open letter to my friend No One because I want to get at least one post in. And I’m glad that I am here doing it. I am glad that I at least took the time to sit and write something, anything, to have at least one post in April of 2020. Because April of 2020 has been one hell of a month.

The thing about writing, No One, or being an artist, or a creative, anything in that capacity where time and thought is required; it must be realized that these are in higher order objectives on the hierarchy of needs. Let me remind you No One that the Hierarchy of Needs is a concept proposed by the psychologist Abraham Maslow. Simple stated the idea is that needs lower on the pyramid need to be met before one can seek to satisfy higher order needs. Logically food, water, shelter, and well being occupy the first two orders.

Well No One America is shut down, the economy is slowing down, everyone is on stay at home orders, and all sense of normalcy has been gone for about two months. We are living through a pandemic, Covid-19, we are creating history every day. No One we are living in a situation that only you could have predicted but once again remained a silent observer, waiting eternally for the play to unfold. No One everyone claims you can see these things coming but can you really? It’s all just random chaos in which you do not participate No One always just out of reach. So how I wonder to I describe what it’s like to participate in this crazy world?

What are the limits to being an open book, to telling all about oneself honestly, from the triumphant to the humiliating, the good and bad, the sources of our esteem and shame, what’s worth sharing and what needs to remain under the surface unseen? How much would you like to know No One about my life story and the way I have participated in the grand drama of existence.

It is as though more time has passed than really has. I look at my life up to this point and the choices which I have made, plans and visions I may have once made and who I am now. In the time of Covid-19 much has remained to do. Many have lost their jobs, but I have continued with only a minor shake up, which was only a loss of hours. Really my life is going on more or less the same way that it was before. It’s the promise of change in the future that has threatened the lower orders of my personal hierarchy of needs.

Life changes that is what it does, that means you as an individual will change, the environment around you will change, and the opportunities available will change. Well this should be well known to all of us who have been participating in this game of existence for a while. Well No One those major life changes are finally coming my way big time. The future is rather uncertain with the only clear thing being that I will be living elsewhere, likely working a new job, and reaching a real turning point in my life.

Our lives are lived narratively so these events which contribute to the shaping of the story are important to remember and when appropriate share. When approaching my writing I want to use what has happened to me as a guide but not as something to report. What I think should be included in the story is the lesson or growth that came from an event or experience. In practice this leads me to try to avoid talking about what is occurring in my life in preference for talking about ideas. Before deciding to write this letter No One I was trying to write about time management, about happiness and unhappiness, and a defense of reading literature. No where in my writings would there be a hint of the experience which inspired me to start any of those posts. So I ask would it be valuable to pay more attention to those experiences, to capture my experiences as they are, not merely the ideas which I distill from my feelings and thoughts? How much should one share about their life?

There are things about us that we do not question, or even think about until certain events, situations, or revelations occur. I want to engage with myself authentically, I want to look at the raw, the ugly, disappointing, and terrible within and be honest. That doesn’t mean to latch on to this or that thing and make that the focus of my work. I just want to know about myself and that seems to be something which has been hard to do. No One I have a lot of instances recently where I stop and question whether I am doing something for myself or for another. Hell sometimes I wonder where the division between the self and the other begin. When I consider how I use to be concerned with little beyond reading and wandering in thought I realize how little I really participated in the world. I keep getting mad at myself for not reading as I use to, but back then I did not participate as much as I do now.

I wonder then if I should be writing about all that is going on in my life. My life is private but is the only source of my writing. Writing about time management began with my thoughts on my schedule, my attempt to balance work, school, my relationship, my family, and my personal goals of the Cultivation Life. Balancing all these has proven a challenge which I do not always want to engage with. The piece was begun and remains incomplete. Still I consider myself a writer in development, so I search for something to work on. I had read once in the introduction of a novel that a writer should write about what they know. So I began to write about unhappiness and the need to persist through unpleasant feelings. Yet I have no plans to write about the job I have and how my experiences there provide the material for that piece. Anyone coming to Lost in Aporia will see that this was a rather unproductive period of my life. I wonder if I should provide more information about this life, I live so that my writing journey, my development, can be better understood. How can I explore these aspects of humanity within myself if I do not illustrate the source of these emotions and thoughts? The great writers I read are not afraid to go places so then what is the issue? The issue is that I need stability.

The importance of understanding the hierarchy of needs is to understand that you can’t always be reaching for the stars with your head in the clouds. I want to be a writer, that is my aspiration, a noble one to have. But that is something that comes after survival. Right now writing has become more difficult that usual and that is because there is no usual for me right now. The home I have grown up and known my whole life will soon be empty. The cities I have known have become strange. I am choosing new routes and paths in life and the demands to care of the basics have to come before philosophy and writing. Or perhaps No One I just need to be wiser and content myself with a simple piece, even one as simple as writing an old friend.