F
or people who write regu-
larly, one of the most dis-
heartening experiences is
that of “writer’s block.” It is an un-
pleasant feeling, to say the least. No
matter how hard I try, the words do
not come. Or, they come in fits and
starts, only to be censored before
they reach the page.
Words, the building blocks of
the written product, seem to reside
somewhere in my mind. They float
around up there, waiting for me to
scoop them up and spread them
around. But writer’s block is a dam
for words, gunking up the passage-
way that brings the abstraction of
thought to fruition in the material
world.
This is, at least, how I have pic-
tured the problem of writer’s block.
My fears and anxieties attached to
writing seem to come from mental
obstructions. Most of the time, I at-
tribute the lack of consistency and
clarity in my written work to brain
fog, tiredness or carelessness.
At worst, the harshness with
which I critique my work — even
while I am still in the process of
drafting — results in me charging
myself of intellectual dishonesty;
not plagiarism, but dissociation
from my own writing because it
does not represent what I want to
say. What you intend to write is full
of lies, half-truths and sophisms, I
tell myself, as I continue to stare at
the blank page in front of me.
Where
do
these
damaging
thoughts and emotions about my
writing come from? And where
might they end?
***
I
n general, I believe my fears
and anxieties about writ-
ing stem from my equating
of writing ability to intelligence. I
have been prone to say that a “bad”
piece of writing functions as proof
of an intellectual failure on my part.
The same can be said of almost any
exam, test or paper I have turned in:
These are “tests” in the sense that
they measure something about me,
not merely my knowledge about a
particular subject.
This is a counterproductive way
of thinking about assignments, aca-
demic or otherwise. It presupposes
a binary of comprehension — ei-
ther you understand completely,
or not at all — and obscures the
role of practice and active engage-
ment with the subject matter at
hand. Though the ultimate source
of this “Caesar or nothing” attitude
towards writing is ambiguous, I do
have some intuitions about its prov-
enance.
At university, I started to study
philosophy and began to internal-
ize the long philosophical tradi-
tion of privileging the mind over
the body. For many philosophers,
this has amounted to a repudiation
of the body as the site of innumer-
able aches, pains, lusts and other
biological
hindrances.
Though
there is debate around this issue,
Plato often talks about suppressing
bodily desire in order to cultivate
the soul [psuchê], which is simi-
lar to our contemporary notion of
mind as something inanimate and
potentially transcendent. The same
themes of denying oneself pleasure
and ignoring the body are explored
by later schools of Greek philoso-
phy, early Christian philosophers
and, in some cases, in the moral
philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
Though philosophers have had
a somewhat strained psychologi-
cal relationship with their bod-
ies, many have also been skeptical
about trusting sense experience al-
together. This elevation of the mind
over the body can be traced to the
Platonic theory of forms, though
in my view it was stated most suc-
cinctly by the French philosopher
René Descartes in his “Discourse
on the Method.”
The “Discourse” contains the fa-
mous logical formulation je pense,
donc je suis, (“I think, therefore I
am”), the result of the philosopher’s
search for an indubitable truth. Or,
rather, in training his sights on pure
reflection, free of the biases of the
senses, Descartes seeks the truth
in avoiding error. Similarly, in the
“Meditations on First Philosophy,”
he writes that, in order to avoid de-
ception, “I shall imagine myself as
if I had no hands, no eyes, no flesh,
no blood, no senses at all, but as if
all my belief in these things were
false.”
The Cartesian mode of thinking
amounts to a denial of the role of
the body in grasping the truth. For
me, however, this brand of body de-
nial has led to innumerable confu-
sions regarding the articulation of
thoughts through the process of
writing — a process that involves
drawing from the well of pure re-
flection only to sully the waters.
My reading of Descartes here is
admittedly condensed, though it
points towards broader questions
about the relationship between my
thoughts and my written work. If
Descartes were in front of me to-
day, I would have two questions for
him: Why have you dared to write
philosophy, if writing can only be
achieved by means of the body?
Why have you written, given that
the human body is the cause of so
many deceptions against human-
ity?
In fact, especially in the “Medi-
tations,” Descartes does describe
the considerable effort required
to abandon his old ways of think-
ing that were influenced by bodily
senses. Despite his best efforts,
the philosopher admits, “a kind of
laziness brings me back to what is
more habitual in my life.” This la-
ziness resembles a half-sleep, one
in which the dreamer is partially
aware that he is in a dream but
wants to preserve the pleasant il-
lusion. Thus, tiredness of the body
represents an obstacle to contem-
plation. But even in those moments
where Descartes seems to grasp the
truth, relying only on his mind, the
act of writing brings these reflec-
tions into the physical world. How
did Descartes relate to his arms, his
quill and ink, his parchment, and
all the other physical “things” that
permitted him to communicate his
ideas to future generations? What
anxieties may he have held about
the subjection of the mind, the
“thinking thing” [res cogitans], to
the instruments of language, writ-
ing tools and the body itself; the
material things [res extensa] on
which writing depends?
I am not sure what Descartes
thought about the act of writing,
but I do know other thinkers have
expressed their reticence about
it. The 20th century philosopher
Jacques Derrida, for instance, ex-
pressed anxiety about challenging
authority in his own writing.
“Nothing intimidates me when
I write,” he explained in an in-
terview for a documentary. “I say
what I think must be said.” Howev-
er, Derrida goes on to describe the
self-doubt that invades his psyche
when he is away from his papers.
Especially at the moment when he
is falling asleep, an internal voice
admonishes him for his arrogance.
The philosopher is suddenly seized
with the destructive desire to burn
all of his papers and start over.
Fortunately, these moments of
crisis occurred away from his desk.
But what if he had allowed those
moments of censorship to invade
the practice of writing itself?
During the act of writing, we
make decisions about what to say
and what not to say as we go; there
is not a clear line between the writ-
ing process and the editing process
per se. But writer’s block, at least
for me, represents the counterpro-
ductive disciplining of the mind
and body in the creative process.
My block is not just in the mind but
reverberates throughout my entire
body. The physical aversion of writ-
ing utensils and devices comple-
ments the mental aversion of error,
resulting in a perfect storm of stag-
nation.
***
B
reaking
writer’s
block,
then, is not a movement
that happens solely in the
mind; the act of writing is just that
— an act — and must be performed
at the physical level as well as in the
quiet of one’s mind.
Perhaps that is not a remarkable
realization, but for a writer like me
who is trapped in the equating of
writing and intellect, it represents
a way to engage the body in order
to free the mind. In this framing,
writing is not a means of liberat-
ing the mind from the body, but of
strengthening their connection.
For one way of thinking about writ-
ing is to see it as a neutral medium
for the presentation of ideas, and
another is to regard writing as part
of the process of thinking itself.
Letting oneself write is an act of
generosity, too, because it allows
an inner dialogue to materialize
without immediately censoring
the outcome of this dialogue in the
written product. When I am in the
flow of writing, there is indeed a
feeling of necessity that drives the
flushing of words onto a screen
or wherever else I happen to be
recording my thoughts. Writing
anxiety blocks the overall process
of making my mark on the world
around me, trapping my thoughts
“inside” of my body despite my
will to mark them down some-
where on the outside.
Etymology provides a clue to
this traditional sense of writing as
a cutting, marking, or scratching
of the world which bodies inhabit.
Roughly speaking, the Old English
verb writan, as well as the Latin
scribere, were related to the physi-
cal notion of scoring, outlining or
drawing. To take a broader view,
historians believe that the first full
writing systems in history were
formed independently between
3400 and 600 BC, in Mesopota-
mia, Egypt, China and Mesoameri-
ca. The evidence, of course, is from
the inscriptions of pictures, char-
acters and scripts made onto vari-
ous writing surfaces. These ranged
from the first clay tablets in Sumer
to the invention of reed brushes
and ink in Egypt and beyond.
Writing as “making marks,”
however, no longer conforms to a
broad and inclusive conception of
the craft. Technological advance-
ments have dislodged the histori-
cal connection between writing
and marking, especially with the
introduction of typewriters, key-
boards and word processors. Fur-
ther, the ancient practice of dic-
tation, where I verbally dictate
what I want to write to a scribe, no
longer has to involve another hu-
man. Modern speech-recognition
technology such as Dragon Natu-
rallySpeaking provides a techno-
logical method for translating ver-
bal speech into the written word.
This, too, is writing, according to a
conception of writing that empha-
sizes the general rapport between
humans, written expression and
the mode of written expression,
without presupposing a particular
configuration of the three.
History, as well as my own ex-
perience, has shown that writing
can take on an indefinite number
of forms. This leaves the definition
of writing ambiguous, and I think
that is ultimately a good thing.
Experimenting with the writing
process in this open-ended man-
ner has been helpful for me as an
“un-blocking” mechanism, par-
ticularly by engaging my mind
with my body. Even though I usu-
ally have Google Docs or Microsoft
Word open as I write, if I feel stuck
it helps to scribble on a few Post-
It notes or draw out an outline in
my journal. Recently, I have taken
to recording voice memos on my
phone that I can later use to jog my
memory. My use of these different
writing technologies has consti-
tuted a hybrid creative process,
one that emphases the material-
ization of my ideas rather than the
protection of their mental purity.
I recognize, however, that the
employment of these technologies
as an able-bodied person is a privi-
lege that not all writers enjoy. The
design of the standard computer
keyboard, for example, can be an
impractical writing medium for
some people with visual or physi-
cal disabilities. These keyboards
are designed for two-handed typ-
ists, not people with the use of
one hand; some functions require
pressing two keys at once, which
is difficult for people who have
difficulty with fine motor control;
small keys and little to no separa-
tion between them present dif-
ficulties for people with motor,
vision and cognitive difficulties.
Writing, therefore, is an accessi-
bility issue, though not one that is
limited to the availability of cer-
tain technologies. The ambiguous
practice of writing implies a non-
neutrality of writing instruments
and launches questions about the
design of things that have become
a part of many people’s everyday
lives, but that do not necessarily
take everyone’s needs and prefer-
ences into account.
***
E
veryone has the right to
self-expression — writing,
for example — but not ev-
eryone employs the same means of
self-expression. The reasons for
this are not limited to the abilities
allowed of the body, but it can be
argued that writing and the body
are inseparable.
I used to frame writer’s block
as an obstacle of the mind, but
reframing it as the engagement
of the body in a habitual activity
has increased my sensitivity to the
possibilities of writing practice.
Especially in philosophy, there is
sometimes a tendency to erase, ig-
nore and reproach the body that
contributes to anxieties about its
role in intellectual activity.
For me, however, the image of
the embodied writer represents
a door to empathy, from writer to
writer, even though the individual
writing experience of each re-
mains unique. Nevertheless, here
is an invitation to reflect on my
own writing practice and connect
it to that of others, remaining alto-
gether grateful for the opportunity
to make my mark, however that
happens to manifest itself.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
statement
ILLUSTRATION BY EILEEN KELLY
Wednesday, March 31, 2021 — 13
Letting the body write
BY ALEXANDER SATOLA, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT