And Darkness Was Upon the Face of the Deep: Writing Authentically Provides Form for Despaire and Transforms Darkness Into Light

I woke at 3:00 in the morning, so sure I had something worth writing.  I rose like lightning, no fear.  I didn't worry about how I'd make it through my day without sleep.  I didn't worry if I'd be able to get what was in my head on paper.  I didn't worry about editing out the uncouth, the vulgar, the unruly. I didn't worry about clearing the dense, ripe, wild, thicket.

I wrote fast and furious.  I was high on my own mind.  When Marci woke up, I shared my plans for the next great American novel.  She, the good wife, supported me, or just knew from years of living with a writer to not try and insert reality into the mind of a manic.

I even rushed off to work with the camera so that I could take pictures of the setting for my imaginary town after work, using a nearby town as my model.

Then something happened.  Doubt crept in.  Is any of it good?  Have I said anything that can be misconstrued or misinterpreted?  Have I let the pagan out?  Will I be cast out as a crazed, lunatic? Will my blog tank?  Will my facebook friends unfriend me?

I was so frantic that I opened my post during work time (something I never do as I have plenty of students to help, plenty of papers to grade), and read quickly through my draft trying to convince myself that it was in fact the same masterpiece I believed I'd created earlier this morning.

I was able to hold doubts at bay for a while, and even made my trip to photograph my model setting. However, the evidence was too strong--out of five pages, I had one good sentence:  Life is a town on a plain between reality and the exotic.  A gem to be sure, but a tiny diamond in a pile of horseshit.

So, I had to do the hard thing.  Scrap my wild-night dream, my hard labor, the idea that my lack of sleep would be redeemed by a masterpiece.

Such is the life of a writer.  I don't think there is any other way, but in the long run, I think it is healthy:  wild, manic moments of poring everything out on the page as quickly as your hand can move--and not just for the good of your writing. It's also good for your soul.  How else do you discover those hidden places in your mind?:  dark cellars, small closets, skeletons, bones--yes?  But also attics of light, a piece of tar paper stuck in an old elm tree, regal and battered as a black bird, glimpsed through a dirty, cobweb-covered window.  

I'm careful about making generalizations out of personal passions.  Although I'm an English teacher, I've never felt literature must be a part of everyone's life.  If you'd rather knit, crochet, work on engines, or bowl, bully for you, but I do wonder how the non-writer accesses his/her soul?  It seems journal writing, at least, should be part of everyone's life.

And not the type of journal you dream of handing down to posterity to inspire and enlighten them, though that is important too.  But messy, wild, dangerous journals where demons are allowed to enter, and in the process of being written out, either die or become converted into saints.  Even if they remain demons, there is a safe place for them--much better than beating them back down into the basement with a big stick. Especially for the youth.  I worry as much about the teenager who never has thoughts of suicide as much as I do the one who does.  Human development has rooms that must be passed through, and a healthy person steps through the doors at the appropriate times.

There is a reason Lindsey Buckingham wrote "So Afraid" while relatively young and Sting wrote "King of Pain" early in his career.  It is doubtful Ginsberg, no matter what parallel universe you placed him in, would have written "Howl" in his old age.  There is a reason why youth are drawn to such works of art.

I'm not saying adults should turn a blind eye to depression; we all know too well the tragic results of that. And it is easy for youth to move from a healthy release of negative emotions through music to actually feeding those emotions--throwing steaks to a cub until it becomes a tiger.  But perhaps, it is better to give youth a safe place to work through their emotions: through journals that are regarded as private and music that is tolerated even though it is not necessarily uplifting.

I'm not advocating liaise-fare parenting here.  Teens need parental involvement and limits desperately. Nothing is scarier than kicking at the safety-rail and finding out the safety-rail is an illusion and you're tumbling free-fall.

What I am advocating is allowing youth to walk through doors and into the developmental rooms in their psychic mansions in safety.  What they really need is translation.

We all do.  That is the value of writing.  It gives shape and definition to the void, to the deep:

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.  And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  

And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. (Genesis 1:2-3)

Notice that before God declares light, his spirit moves across the darkness.  He doesn't dive into it; he doesn't dwell there; but he does touch it, name it, and know it prior to illuminating it.

When it comes to the states with the highest suicide rates, Utah is number 15 with 14.3 suicides per 100,000 people (CBS).   This is ironic, as Mormons are generally healthier, better educated and better off economically than the general U.S. population (Deseret News,PEW).

Perhaps in embracing the belief that, "men are, that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25), Mormons have failed to give weight to another doctrine, "For it must needs be,  that there is an opposition in all things" (2 Nephi 2:11).  Perhaps we sometimes need to walk through the valley of death and survive before we fully recognize joy.

I did not intend this post to be centered around Mormonism.  In my opinion, American culture, as a whole, generally fears sorrow and darkness nearly as much as the subculture of Mormonism and generally has the same tendency towards positive thinking, as evidenced by vast ocean of literature on the subject.  And I too generally believe in optimism.

But denial is perhaps the most damaging lie as it is a lie to ones own soul.

My faith has saved me, has filled my life with light, but only after my art gave me permission to move across the waters, know the deep and feel the depth of the void below me.

It is the writer's job to discover the universe through the microcosm within and translate that experience for humanity.  In short, our job is to bear witness.  To do this, we must know ourselves and be willing to write what is real.  I can best use my God-given talent by being willing to let my mind move across the waters, be they calm or turbulent.

I would argue that we are all writers and have that need, but we deny it.

Suicide is not a symptom of shedding light on darkness; rather, it is a symptom of leaving the shutters closed, where fears are without form, where the depth of the waters are unknown.  By translating those feelings, giving them form, realizing the ocean, though deep, is not bottomless, we are eventually able to declare Let there be light! in our own lives.

At least that was my own personal experience; I literally wrote my way to safe ground.  It may not be the same for everyone. Though useful, there is always some danger in universalizing the particular. Writing gives shape and form to unknown, but not all shapes fit all holes.