A Writer Must Say Yes To Life

“One of the hardest things to make a child understand is, that down underneath your feet, if you go far enough, you come to blue sky and stars again; that there really is no “down” for the world, but only in every direction an “up.” And that this is an all-embracing truth.”

…It is also what “we grown children find it hardest to realize, too.”—Anne Gilchrist

Occasionally, I randomly open a book to see what it offers for the day. After the above Gilchrist quote I found this morning, I opened Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing Down the Bones, (1986) page 48 (30th Anniversary Edition), and this spoke to me.

“A writer must say yes to life, to all of life, the water glasses, the Kemp’s half and half, the ketchup on the counter. It is not a writer’s task to say, “It is dumb to live in a small town or to eat in a café’ when you can eat macrobiotics at home.” 

Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist—the absolute truth of who we are—several pounds overweight, the gray, cold street outside, the Christmas tinsel in the showcase, the Jewish writer in the orange booth across from her blond friend who has black children. We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop those details from becoming.”—Natalie Goldberg.

Art is where your heart is.

And HOPE is right beside it. We have to believe there is hope for the future. We have to HOPE that we aren’t all tied up in Plato’s dark cave, only seeing shadows, not the real things.

A scientist HOPES his theory is correct. A singer HOPES her audience likes her song. A songwriter, HOPES his lyrics ring true.

The writer-artist doesn’t write to impart wisdom; they write to find themselves, and through that self-discovery, they hope to motivate others to do the same.

Who was it--Issac Asimov, I think, who said “I write to find out what I am thinking?”