For my final Ozeki post I am going to attempt making an interesting post using one of the 15 questions posed on the Madison Public Library handout. Mainly because I can’t think of anything else creative. Is this saying that I’m giving up? No. I am one of two or three people in the world who really did not care for the book and after my last three Ozeki posts have exhausted my creative flow.
“Imagine that you had a notebook like Nao’s diary and you wanted to communicate with an unknown reader as she does. What would you write about? Would you be as honest as Nao is with us? What are the benefits and risks of writing such a document?”
To answer the last question first, Evergreen philosophy professor Bill Arney asserted several times last (Fall) quarter that there is always a price to pay for your writing. I risk further isolation from my classmates who loved the book (one went so far to say that “it was like sweet nectar”) by writing anything critical of it. The other side of the coin is that my writing might empower someone else who didn’t like the book to speak their mind.
Back to the first part of the question, I don’t have to imagine having a notebook like Nao’s; I have written– and continue to write in notebooks intended to communicate with unknown readers. The difference is my writings are songs and poems. I started writing in these notebooks a long time ago. The intended reader was the listener. The unintended reader was myself! As I look back on some of my writings I am often reading them 10, 15, 20 years later. I am a very different person now compared to then.
Much like Nao, I mostly wrote about things happening in my life, what I was feeling, desires and aspirations… sometimes just riffing on something that inspired me to write. Yes, I did– and continue to–write honestly. Though if I am trying to express a feeling (opposed to an event) through music I embellish and write in a way that serves the imagination. It remains honest– perhaps differently, but it is still genuine. One difference that I’ve noticed in my writing between then and now is that I am more aware of the potential reader now than I was at Nao’s age. Words have meaning. Even more so when put to music as it communicates on a deeper level than simply words on a page. As such my writing tends to be more… intentional… now than it was before.
The benefits to writing such things can be like those interviewed by Densho. When writing about things that weigh heavy on one’s mind, the benefit is often the feeling of a heavy weight being lifted from the persons shoulders. A weight many people don’t realize they are carrying until they speak about it– or in this case, to write about it. Another benefit, especially when I’ve completed a song, or finished performing it, I often feel reinvigorated. To quote bluesman Elwood Blues, “…no pharmaceutical product could ever equal the rush you get when the band hits that groove; the people are dancin’, and shoutin’, and swayin’; and the house is rocking’!”