“The secret of it all,” says Walt Whitman, “is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place.” Now, I don’t really know what the throb or the gush are, but I definitely get the sentiment of what he’s saying, and I sure as hell feel it! I know, shame on me. As a writer, I should probably know those words. I mean, they look simple enough. I know what throb means but I don’t think that’s what it means in this context. Who knows. All I know is that, without knowing every word, Whitman makes me feel what he is saying, because he is a writer, and I consider myself a writer. I mean, whether I’m a good writer, or anything else beyond the fact that I’m a writer, is beside the point. I’ve been writing for over a hundred days straight on here, which anyone can see if they would like to verify whether I’m a writer or not. So, I say this to back up Whitman’s point. Forget style, like what style is my writing in? What am I going for with this? What about paragraphs? Am I separating these sentences in the proper places? Fuck it! Sometimes you just have to go with the flow, and ride the wave. In today’s world of unlimited options, it can sometimes be easy to get distracted from our creative goals, but we have to remember that we don’t really need much to get started. We need to stop making excuses. You can literally take “the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk” like Whitman says in the same quote, and just get started with an idea! Everything starts with a single idea, and you have to go from there and take baby steps towards your final goal, which you have to constantly visualize, and truly know and recognize, so that when it finally becomes real, you’ll know that’s the moment and it’s there, because you’ve seen it unfold so many previous times in your mind. It’s reading quotes like these that makes me love reading, and realizing that all kinds of people from all kinds of walks of life, including those known as the greats of any field, have shared similar ideas, similar thoughts, and even creative techniques as myself. This type of connection with other creative people, and with other humans in general, even if they are long dead, truly inspires me to continue on my journey, both as an artist, and as a human being. Sometimes the fact that the people who uttered or wrote these sayings are long dead actually inspires me even more, because it shows me that the eternal questions of life are truly eternal, and that our humanity and our sense of wonder is something that truly unites us, and has done so since the dawn of time. For example, what Walt Whitman is describing in the quote above has always been my exact approach not only to writing, but also to creating beats and music in general, and to basically my entire life. I often see people make posts of music that they made, and define it as some very niche genre, and I always wonder how exactly they know that this is the exact genre or type of music they’re making, like how do you know this is hyperpop, or glitchpop, or whatever else? And this is coming from someone who listens to a lot, and I mean a lot, of music. Are they starting out from a mindset of creating something in a certain style? I wouldn’t doubt it, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. I’m sure it can lead to great results, and I’m sure it already has numerous times. That’s the beauty of life, that so many people can do so many things in so many different ways, and art is one of the most unlimited ways of human expression, with so many choices to make, and every choice ultimately adding up, every choice coming together to culminate in an end result, which is the only part of the process that most people will ever get to witness. I appreciate you reading, and I’ll continue this train of thought in tomorrow’s post, so follow me if you want to see where this idea leads us.
rebel eye 