Writing & pleasure, part 2
I’ve always loved pens. I used to keep a journal, and aside from its value as an aid to reflection, the physical act of writing in it gave me pleasure. Many people are passionately attached to fountain pens; they’re particular about nibs, ink, and paper. But I love all pens, even the cheap ones. At conferences I go for the free ballpoints; I don’t care about the tote bags.
When I got serious about being a writer, I developed the same sensory fondness for my typewriter. I’ve read comments by writers who say they need to start out with longhand drafts in order to feel the connection between their ideas and the sentences they produce. I felt that connection on the typewriter, as a flow of energy from my gut through my hands striking the keys onto the paper. Organic. When I had to switch to a computer, I worried I’d lose that feeling because the keyboard was so different. But all it took was getting as proficient at word processing as I’d been at typing. By now I enjoy the physical sensation of keyboarding as much as writing longhand and typewriting.
Typing is only pleasurable, though, when it produces sentences. I don’t get any enjoyment from filling out an Excel spreadsheet. But I do get it even from writing a report for a nonprofit, a training manual for a body therapist, or a newsletter article.
Best of all is writing a book—even if it’s someone else’s—because that introduces another factor—the pleasure of fitting together the pieces of a puzzle. More on that in next entry.
The role of pleasure
I spent last weekend at a meditation retreat receiving instruction in a technique that uses the breath to develop concentration. It was more technical than any practice I’d learned before—structured and specific, moving from step 1 to step 4 (as far as we got in two days, though the technique itself goes to step 16). The method (called anapanasati) is designed to develop concentration, the ability to focus the mind on one particular object (in this case, the breath) and keep it there. Concentration is said to make wisdom possible (“wisdom” meaning “perception of the true nature of reality”).
I went because I’d had a brief experience of this technique that had a powerful effect on me, so I thought I should learn more of it. Whether I develop greater powers of concentration and thereby wisdom is still to be seen (and indeed, beside the point, as I explain below); but what’s relevant here is a comment by the teacher that struck me.
Concentration is hard work, he said, but this work of developing a skill is inherently joyful—more so than achieving a finished result. This is literally true, because once you get to step 3, you begin to move energy through the body, developing a physical sensation called piti (classically translated “rapture,” though a more realistic description of my experience would be “pleasure”). In step 4, you develop sukha, an emotional state translated as “contentment” or indeed, “joy.” So it is actually the process that creates the pleasure, not achieving the goal.
So it is with writing. To be totally immersed, with your whole being, in creating a form that expresses the most profound awareness you’re capable of is deeply pleasurable. I once said something like this to a woman I knew from a writing class, adding rhetorically, “What could be more satisfying?”
She responded, “A roll in the hay!”
“But that goes away the next day!” I exclaimed. “The other doesn’t.”
I realized later that she was probably just trying to show off a little. But my instinctive response made me understand my own experience more clearly. In fact, I find even writing that doesn’t emerge from the depths of my being to be highly enjoyable. The next entry will enlarge on that.