Friday Pragmatism | Writing abstracts

It is extremely tempting to break tradition and write something abstract for today’s Friday Pragmatism, but I will remain disciplined enough to remain true to the column and instead discuss my nature to be abstract.

At this very moment as I type, I believe that I will have far less to say this week on the topic, but I’ve had such thoughts before and ended up writing quite a lengthy exposition.
As an end-note to one of my earlier pieces this week, I commented that I’m often asked why I don’t write directly about my life, and that I actually did write about my life; I always am, just in abstract. My diary has always lacked the kind of descriptive accounts of actual events that often populate public writing. I don’t have a problem with people writing descriptive accounts of events, it’s simply not the kind of thing I wish to share in an online forum or community. Access to my actual life is actually a component of intimacy, including and especially the most common-place events and observances. I may write here that I enjoy simple rituals and celebrations and give a primary example such as making tea, but I will not go into detail as to what they all are and how each instance makes me feel. Some of these things I share with my dearest friends and family, others are extremely private. Those with whom I share my life have established a sense of intimacy with me, something we have cultivated together over years of shared experience and hours and hours of detailed and expressive conversation.

What I write here are mostly abstracts; Vroenis certainly to a greater extent, or to the extreme of only containing abstracts. Some of these abstracts are my translations of events and emotions, some are almost direct accounts of actual events and emotions but made manifest in something other than the direct literal accounting of them. It’s a simple thing that is slightly difficult to explain, or perhaps I lack the motivation or understanding of the necessity to. Some of the people I know read my writing and are interested in the abstracts of events and emotions I have shared with them and so their perspective on my writing is unique and interesting. Where strangers come in is in the absolute lack of direct experience of my character and behaviour. While I will never directly write for any audience or to garner attention purely for the gratification of it, there is still something rewarding in reading the responses readers have to my work, however rare it is.

What I have noticed is that people I know and those I do not both have fewer or no responses to my most abstract works. Sometimes there are feelings of awkwardness, sometimes uncertainty, but often I find the best responses are given by those whom I know and in their non-verbal languages. A dear friend of mine is very expressive with her face and body-language and she is wonderfully expressive when she reads my work. We’ve known each-other for years and both of us have changed as much as we have stayed the same; it feels natural and evolutionary to retain certain aspects of our characters, yet still grow beyond who we once were.

The key I think is in not trying to figure out what is being said. Reading abstracts is about feelings; the text evokes certain feelings, inspires or provokes certain thoughts, creates certain atmospheres for the reader or it doesn’t. One thing you can be almost certain of is that it’s rarely meant to be confusing, so there should never be any question as to what the text may or may not mean. It means what it means to you; you should not expend any effort in attempting to second-guess the intent of the author, instead you should focus on what you create of it. If you create nothing, if no emotions are evoked, then the piece has no relevance to you and you can proceed to forgetting it.

I love abstracts. I love representations. I love ambiguity so great that a text can mean any one of a hundred things, all of them at once and none of them at all, all at the same time. I celebrate such things in life, and perhaps it is a reflection of how I perceive my own experience. Frustration, anger, joy, bliss, desire, disappointment, hope, agility, curiosity… all of these things and more are represented here. As I’m so fond of saying, all of my secrets are written here.

Some people, one in particular who knows who she is, knows me almost exclusively by my writing. Others in life know me almost exclusively by our shared behaviour as most of them don’t read or discuss my work heavily. One day I hope that someone may be energetic, patient and perhaps stubborn enough to do both. That day I imagine will be the day I decide to engage in a long-term relationship again after the latest and now some years past round of heartbreak I’ve endured and celebrate along with the rest of my turbulent life.
But who knows; a person capable of loving me, of whom I am capable of loving may not understand the writing at all, yet I’m not discouraged by that fact. It will reaffirm as always that I continue to write primarily for myself and that regardless of whether others understand it, it will always carry great meaning for me.

I have many talents; music, technical agility, mechanical understanding and language-use, but writing abstracts is perhaps the most rewarding and enjoyable things I’ve ever done in my life. I hope I never stop, and I hope they only grow more ambiguous, more obscure and more reflective of my life.