Writing & Living Life Well

How the words of ancient philosophers help in writing and life

This week the weather gave notice of closing out the season: blowing equatorial and arctic, windows open then closed, clothes off then layers on, the blind down the sun so fierce and bright, the blind up for natural light, birds were impatient to know when new life should begin, casts of Sparrows mobbing feeders in excitement. In between writing I kept grabbing the binoculars to watch the Magpies building their new nest, even took a photo with my biggest lens and had to squint to see them. Still, I am excited for the coming months. Our world is waking.

We began the week with hand-wringing. Monty, one of our Bedlington twins, fourteen this year, had seen the vet twice the week prior; he wasn't eating and spent the days forlornly on his bed. Alison swung through emotions that stole nights. I calculated costs. A blood test showed a dodgy liver easily rectified with expensive drugs. He had the injection on Saturday afternoon and drifted from normal life to something worse and back again through Sunday. I tried to relax in soft loose clothing and not mither Alison too much. Early Monday his old irritating annoying self was hammering on bedroom doors demanding breakfast. Happiness restored to the house. We were free.

In my absence the narrative of draft two had taken a different direction. I had the beginning and ending and was working on the middle. Often the beginning may change, the end rarely. The middle is generally incoherent in early drafts. Plot and reason yes, but the character is soft with a tendency to waffle, sentence structure grows more complicated, often longer and frequently circular the words sagging through lack of thought, gasping exhausted to a full stop. I knew the error. My ego was on the page. It happens, it’s easier than writing well.

The key to improving my writing is reading. I cannot stress enough how important it is. Back in twenty-two I wanted to read closely and more deeply to understand the foundations of literature. So began my classical education beginning with Greek classics under the guidance of Ted Gioia at The Honest Broker He is, by way of Stanford and Oxford universities, a music historian, cultural critic and jazz pianist, “I started out as a critic and historian [ . . . ] but my priorities are different now. More than anything, I want to have a positive impact on our culture.”

The first week of his 12-Month Immersive Course in Humanities begins with Plato’s The Last Days of Socrates. I use Penguin Classics editions wherever possible, the introductory notes are very useful in helping my understanding of the text. I am always buying, this week adding to my library for the course, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Arthur Miller, and the Koran. What I have found isn’t just the foundation of great writing and much that I read in modern and contemporary literature. I also found a framework for how to live.

Take this from the book, Crito. Socrates has argued himself into prison and the death penalty. Crito wishes to organise an escape but Socrates won’t hear of it. The sentence being just, escape would diminish his reputation, after all, it was Socrates that convinced by his argument that his accusers had no choice; ‘the really important thing is not to live, but to live well.’

Confucius in The Analects, speaks of hsin, being reliable in all words, keeping promises. Choose words wisely and sparingly. Think before committing to an action that takes away from more important things. Once committed, always follow through.

Marcus Aurelius in Meditations writing to himself advises to avoid being Caesarified, or dyed in purple (Caesars would wear purple silk to signify status over all others). Stay simple and pure, avoid pretensions and affectations, strive to be the same person.

Nothing is new under the sun they say; and here was the very philosophy I had chosen to follow after my prognosis, whatever time there was left, to live it well.

How does this translate to my writing? Poetics by Aristotle, is a fifty page treatise (the introduction is much longer) on how to create a narrative. All you need, Aristotle says, is plot, character and reason. And the greatest of these is plot as it is the source and the soul of any story. Character discloses the nature of an individual's choice, is it for the good of all or the benefit of one. Reason is the means by which a character will argue their case.

I strive to keep things simple, avoid affectations and take care that the words maintain the integrity of the piece. I try my utmost to write well. I have found that poets are some of the best teachers for writing. It’s their craft, how to put words together for more than sense or grammatical correctness. How words sound, what they mean, how they sit alongside and in the midst of others. I’m currently reading Sidelines by Michael Longley - memoir, articles, essays and speeches. Longley writes of F. T. Prince and his poem Soldiers Bathing being probably the finest poem of the Second World War. He goes on, ‘Word, image and emotion are intimately related, and the tension, which is discreetly present [ . . . ] mounts as one reads on.’ Something to strive for in my writing practice.

Aristotle says all writing has a beginning, a middle and an end. I guess it is the same in life. Where I begin is not so important as where I end and that is not so important as my actions and words between those two most definite points.