Thoughts on neutrality

In my on-going self-studies of both my past illness and my present states of mind, my thoughts tonight moved through an interesting evolution. This has much to do with the recent focus I’ve had on my own creative writing, as the recent speedwrite I did highlighted some of the creative elements I use in my pieces.

One of the most common themes in my writing is neutrality. Often the tone of my writing as a whole can be neutral, the emotions felt by my protagonists can be neutral, and I often highlight neutral looks on people’s faces. I’m not too sure if I can perfectly explain how precious this idea of neutrality is to me; it has much to do with serenity and peace, but less to do with joy and jubliation or sorrow and negativity.

What’s interesting is that when I was ill with depression, neutrality was very much a reality in my life, albeit in a less romanticised and more unhealthy form. Still though, the two forms resemble each-other; when I was ill, nothing had meaning and I was neither happy nor sad. It was a rather powerful form of neutrality in that it totally separated me from the context of life – as in The Context of Life… I’m pondering what an interesting turn of language it is to call the idea of neutrality powerful, but we must not confuse this with mediocrity. In any case, much of the way I felt back then is translated in my expressions of neutrality in my creative work, however there are a few signifficant differences, the most important of which is that the idea of neutrality that I use in my creative work now does not sever anything from the overall context of both the piece, and life in general. As I mentioned before, neutrality is now more about serenity than anything else.

It’s extremely difficult to explain; both the way I felt when I was ill, and the way I feel about it now. This piece has been written more for myself than my audience I feel, and though I will always fully understand what I mean when I read it, I imagine that very few others will.