Obviously, you don’t need to be sorry

Six months. I looked it up. The last text before this early beginning of a text is from late January. Nothing in-between. I wrote. Just not here. Just not in the morning. I wrote at work. Emails and notes. I worked on a lengthy book chapter. Which I now have to shorten. That’s what the editor said. And also ten scripts. Scripts to guide my conversations with a colleague, so that people could – maybe – listen to the recordings without falling asleep or just clicking on something else at 73 seconds in.

That all is writing. I am sure. But not really writing practice. Not practicing. Focusing on the product and not the process. That does not give you any practice. This here is different. Just writing. I will save the half-baked product. I usually do. Keep it. But not for later. It just there. On the computer. It’s done. I practiced. I have a record of it. That’s it. Done. Very satisfying. Nothing else to do. Shawasana. Your body breaths itself. Nothing else to do. Your jaw muscles, your neck muscles, your finger muscles are relaxed. Nothing else to do. Your mind minds itself. Relaxed. Relaxing.

Six months. I looked it up. In Scrivener. Where I keep all texts. I had heard that’s what writers do. That’s the tool they use. When I started in my first writing group. There are templates in Scrivener. For novels. For film scripts. For poetry collections. I do none of these. I tried. I tried. … What do they say in the movie: Try not. Do or do not. There is no try. I just do. I practice. Slowly. And not so steadily. I was not steady for six months. Try not. Do or not do. Just doing. Now.

Obviously, you don’t need to be sorry, she said. I am not. I missed many good writing sessions. Opportunities to practice. Writing practice. Just doing. Just texts. That’s what I call the folder in Scrivener: Just texts. And that’s what they are: just texts. I am not sure whether they are just. Just to anyone. Just to anything. That’s for others to say. I can only hope. And practice. Practice writing. Just texts. Slowly. And steadily. Steadily is better. Typing. Slowly. With … how many fingers am I using? When I am mindful of that, am I using fewer or more? It’s three and a thumb. One on the left, two on the right, and the right thumb. Or is the thumb a finger? It is one of the five fingers on one hand, but it’s not called a finger. So, what is it? I have no idea, and this is getting too philosophical, and I am just practicing. Practicing writing. It feels good to do it. Do.

It's been a while that I posted; I have been posting regularly on PantaRhei. Mainly on GenAI and language education. It's been a while that I went to my writing group's weekly sessions. I went the other day. The prompt was – you guessed it – Obviously, you don't need to be sorry.

Just words: hope

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well. It is the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out.
Václav Havel

When I grew up in East Germany, Václav Havel was known as – what they called at the time – a dissident and as a writer, whose books we were prevented from reading, whose theatre plays I never saw. During the Prague Spring and the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies, he provided an on-air narrative on the radio and was banned from all theatres after the supression of the Prague Spring in 1968. Later he was the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic.

I have nothing to add to his quote in the context of his story.

I heard this quote today in a lecture by Margaret Wheatley.

Vaclav Havel (from https://www.ndi.org/tribute-to-Vaclav-Havel)

I am reposting this (originally 2022-01-17) at a time when many of us need hope …

Just words: Powerless

Mos.ru, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

There is a POW in power. There is less in power. It’s powerless.

I wish I could talk to this little guy in the Kremlin. And I don’t see why not. His German is quite good, I am told. Younger Vladimir learned it well in the KGB in East Germany. My Russian used to be good. I learned it at a university in Russia, when perestroyka and glasnost’ were frequent words. I should dig them out for this blog one day. I wish perestroyka would have been change. For the better. Glasnost’, it’s transparency, was only budding thirty-five years ago. You helped shatter it.

That’s what I would ask that guy whose face became a meme. A meme of fame with a little squared moustache most people in this beautiful world don’t just remember from Charlie Chaplin. I would ask the guy who shaves carefully daily: why? Is it really worth it? Sending men who are still blue-eyed children west – zapad with a Z – does it make you feel better? Less powerless? You are right, you are not your brother’s keeper. You never were. Then, why did you destroy his home? Did it make you feel safer in yours, next to the mausoleum? Why do you kill his family? Do your daughters hold you dearer for it? When you will have killed him, do you believe you will live longer? What will you do in your remaining days? You have felt paranoidly powerless, I know. Will that change in your remaining days? This is the only thing you have power over. May you find peace for your Russian soul. You have heard Tchaikovski’s Swan Lake the other day.

When talking about the ongoing war in Ukraine, I cannot really say that I am playing with words, as I normally do under Just words. This is serious. Weighing words. My thoughts and prayers are with the Ukrainian people.

The other day, I met a young Ukrainian family here in San Diego. They established a small charity some years ago. Now their sole purpose is to feed suffering people in Ukraine. They are looking for support. Their website is https://icareministrys.org/.

I wrote this about 3 years ago, when the war in Ukraine had just intensified, by Putin’s forces attempting to conquer Kiev. Reposting it now …