Poisoned Prose
My prose has been poisoned. Too long confined to the Academy's towers, I have let atrophy any gift I had for compelling exposition. My inner muse lies bound and gagged by the scholar's impulse to qualify, clarify, and objectify. Balance and reason, evidence and meticulousness are the mantras I cannot shake from my years at the feet of the yogis of erudition.
But shake them not, say Masters Lopate, Goldberg and Dillard. No, Master Suzuki says we must learn to maintain the sophistication of our rational mind while returning to "the innocence of the first inquiry." Oy, say I, this is the literary equivalent of chewing gum, rubbing my stomach and patting my head.
How to get beyond the impulse to say "on the one hand, but on the other hand"? When will I join the ranks of Truman's one-handed economists, and when will I understand what is the sound of a one-handed economist clapping?
The answer to this literary koan eludes me.
So, dear Dogen's advice on how metaphysically to get to Carnegie Hall is still practice, practice, practice.
And you, dear reader, will have to endure the screams as I seek to free my muse from the bonds of stilted style. Your comments on how the liberation mission is progressing are always welcome, unless you know of another antidote for my ailing prose.
Tags: writing
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