Reader: I just read your last piece. What was that about? I don't get it.
Author: I know what you mean. I'm not sure what it's about either.
Reader: You usually have a message that comes clear by the end, but this time you left me wondering.
Author: I don't always see it myself, but rereading sometimes helps. Wait a minute and I'll take another look.
Reader: You mean you don't write what you intend to write?
Author: Don't interrupt. This is harder than I thought... ... ... OK, it seems to be saying that we are not as nice as we used to be because we are worried about getting sick and maybe dying.
Reader: So why are you telling us this?
Author: No particular reason. I just write. Why are you reading it?
Reader: I was hoping for three minutes of light entertainment.
Author: Sorry. I guess our motives didn't match. But maybe I can retrieve some meaning from the nonsense before I toss that one in the basket. First, will you concede that the general mood has changed since the pandemic began, that people who were habitually agreeable are now a little more inclined to question authority, and those who were generous are a bit more selfish?
Reader: OK, I see that. We got into the first lockdown with a minimum of griping, and now in the third wave, although things are much worse, the whining is getting louder, like the government is incompetent and everybody else is an expert. What's your point?
Author: I'm not sure. I think some people are tired of hearing death statistics and want to get back to business as usual, while others are getting more anxious the longer the pandemic persists and are looking at vaccination as a solution. Just different ways of coping with a threat.
Reader: And you wrote this why?
Author: Well, I wasn't preaching. I was just saying how things were.
Reader: How are things exactly?
Author: We are unaccustomed to living with this constant threat, and we are responding emotionally rather than thoughtfully. Our responses vary because our personalities vary. I liked it when we were kinder to each other. So let's be thoughtful and kinder.
Reader: Maybe that is worth saying. Don't throw it in the basket yet.
I recall very distinctly a time when I reread something I had written quite a long time before. I remember thinking I knew what it was about at the time, but now, reading it again several years later I recognized something entirely different.
ReplyDeleteI spent some energy trying to figure this out. Was the original story NOT really about what I thought it was and it was really about something else? Not necessarily. In fact I think it's quite possible for something to mean a new thing given a later context.
Just as I think it's possible for a reader and a writer to glean totally different things from the same piece. Poetry for sure works this way.
Your conversation with your Unknown Reader illustrates the point that it's possible to write something you don't necessarily know its underlying meaning when you write something. Where does meaning come from, after all?
I always think those questions about "what was the original meaning of this...?" quite pointless. What the writers of the scripture or the constitution meant at the time may indeed have a whole different interpretation today. Of course, that's the source of all those huge disagreements, isn't it?
'What was the original meaning,' maybe isn't the most important thing, but it is a thing. Rereading what you have written is like having a conversation with an earlier version of yourself, which could be interesting, like old photo albums. The fact that I do not think now what I thought then modifies my thoughts about thinking and suggests that I be more respectful of the opinions, past and present, of others. I find it particularly easy to judge the ancestors. It is humbling to be my own ancestor in a sense and realize that I now think differently.
DeleteIt's not unlike finding your old underlinings in a book and wondering what the heck you were thinking :-)
ReplyDelete