Thursday, October 24, 2013

20131024.0741

I had had an idea of what I was going to write about while I was in the shower this morning.  By the time I finished washing, got dressed, and made my way to my computer to sit down and write, though, the idea had left me entirely.  All of it that remains is a hole in my recollection, as if something has been pulled out of the ground; I have the general imprint that a thing was there, but I have no idea of its color or of its shape above the soil that is my mind.  It frustrates me; it was a really good idea.

Knowing that it was there, though, offers another avenue into writing, for I think that I am not the only person to have been so afflicted.  Surely I cannot be the only one who has had an idea and lost it, knowing that it was there but unable to recover it (and I still maintain that the thing itself is not a memory; although it is remembered as having existed, it is not itself remembered).  Discussing the experience and its ramifications, then, offers some means of connection between my readers (and I thank you for continuing to read!) and myself--and building connections is a big part of what this kind of writing is supposed to do.

I, at least, have often had the sensation of knowing a thing and then losing that knowledge before it can be used.  For a scholar, it is particularly annoying; we make our ways in the world through knowledge, seeking what knowledge others have left behind and seeking within ourselves for new knowledge to leave behind ourselves.  Each gain of knowledge is an enrichment--even the knowledge that is hard to bear--and each loss of it is concomitantly a diminishment of not only the scholar but of all who follow after.  Had I been able to keep my idea until I sat down to write, I would have been able to develop it (if only a bit) and offer it to the world so that others could see it and, perhaps, use it to look into themselves and find out yet more about the great and glorious existence that is ours.  (If I seem uncommonly optimistic, you may ascribe it to my impending fatherhood; the baby makes all things seem more hopeful.)

Knowing that I had something to offer, something that I could have developed for the entertainment and enrichment of others, something that could possibly have made another person's day better, and that I cannot do that now, is not the most pleasant of things.  Even though no promise of that had been made--indeed, no real offer--I feel as though I have failed in some way, as though I have not lived up to my profession of professing.  I have somehow not given what I ought to give, and I rebuke myself for it despite knowing that no real chastisement for my incapacity will come from the world--perhaps because it does not care, or perhaps because it forgives such minor failings and, in doing so, encourages me to do the same.  And perhaps that is a thing worth sharing.

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