Tag: writing

If, as in the East, writers were trained through a kind of apprenticeship, a good master would say right away, at the very first meeting with the apprentice: “First of all, we must resolve your financial situation. You must, if you do not already have them, create the conditions so that you never depend on, nor expect, money from any of your writings.” So, before grammar, before reading the classics, before anything else, the disciple would have to practice mathematics: calculate how much he would need, monthly, to live; calculate how much he would need to save to have that income, or what kind of work he could do, alongside writing, to raise the amount or secure that monthly income. Without a very well-defined financial plan—the success of which means overcoming the problem of money, freeing oneself from all sorts of financial disturbances—every writer tends to end up, with luck, like Mário de Sá-Carneiro; with bad luck, like others not worth mentioning. Cioran is right: any physical labor is preferable to paid textual work; the need for money must not contaminate the act of writing.

Cioran, in an interview with Michael Jakob:

M. J. : Aviez-vous décidé avant votre arrivée en France de ne pas travailler dans ce pays non plus ?

C. : Oui, c’est d’une façon ultra-lucide que j’ai compris qu’il faut accepter n’importe quelle humiliation ou souffrance pour se refuser à exercer un métier, à faire des choses qu’on n’aime pas et qu’on ne peut pas aimer, à exercer tout travail impersonnel. Seul j’aurais accepté un travail physique. J’aurais accepté de balayer les rues, n’importe quoi, mais pas d’écrire, de faire du journalisme ! Il fallait tout faire pour ne pas gagner sa vie. Pour être libre il faut supporter n’importe quelle humiliation et c’était presque le programme de ma vie.

Freedom and humiliation! Perhaps no two words are so closely linked. Such a response clearly reveals the feeling that pulsates within a true writer. And this writer, whether he likes it or not, will do little more than bear a life that, for others, would be unthinkable. There is no such thing as recognition in literature. The man dedicates his life to building a body of work, financially becomes a nobody, perseveres against all odds, renounces everything else—and yet, he must hope to remain in the peace of anonymity, to never be read. When that luck does not come, he is envied by his peers and insulted by the first imbecile. In the end, however, it is worth it, because the writer who accepts this, in truth, chooses an authentic life, and can be proud of having sustained it without betraying himself.

It is as liberating as it is unpopular to reject all labels, to cling to nothing, to allow oneself to always say what one wants. To philosophize without the title of philosopher, to write poetry without the title of poet, to write without ever earning the title of writer. In this way, it is possible to do all of this authentically, that is, by employing authentic means of expression in an attempt to address the problems that experience has presented. No title will provide gratification comparable to this, to know oneself, to feel oneself spending time on matters of personal importance. And if nothing comes of the effort, at least the comforting sensation will remain that one’s attention was directed toward the questions that life has prescribed.