I was at a bar a few nights ago, when a very good-looking guy came up to me and started chatting. At first I was completely chuffed. And then something strange happened: he got onto the subject of achievement, and cited bearing children as an individual's greatest accomplishment. "You have a chance to create something that's 50% pure you, a part of yourself that will live on," he exulted. Inwardly, I cringed. I've never felt a strong biological impulse to reproduce in the way that he described, nor was I keen to follow what appeared to be a fanatical viewpoint. "I may consider adoption," I said, hoping for tolerance. "That's fine, but you should definitely have your own children," came the dogmatic reply. And that was that.
Posterity has long been a point of human inquiry. Its earliest records are in classical literature, which the world over featured humans desperate to seize immortality and overcome the limitations of flesh. One way to do so is to procreate; that much is obvious. But procreation takes many forms--and of all of them, I am most interested in intellectual and literary offspring.
In terms of my output, two blogs and an old collection of poems are the sum total. I have six diaries that peter out by the 2nd week, and twice as many notebooks, crammed with fragments of thought rather than polished prose. As with bearing children, I don't plan to produce a book, though I idle with the thought, and assume it may just happen. For now though, this blog is my primary point of authorship, and to date, blogging does not rank as literary achievement.
Nonetheless, it came to my attention recently that four friends - some nearby, some far flung - have not only followed this blog, but been inspired enough by it to forge their own imprints. I have a sense for who among them will stay active and who may bow out, but I'm touched that all four cited "The Better Element" as having stirred them to creative activity.
Whether or not we admit it, every writer desires an engaged readership. One of the luxuries of personal writing is being able to imagine your 'other' out there: the idealized reader with whom each printed word is a point of intellectual communion. It means that someone other than you is awake to your purpose and fortified by it. What could be more validating?
Helen Vendler, the queen of close readings, makes a strong case for this in her book Invisible Listeners: Lyric Intimacy in Herbert, Whitman, and Ashbery. She reveals how these poets, each radically distinctive in style and content, used language to identify and appeal to their respective audiences. Herbert directed his spiritual misgivings to God; Whitman figured all of humanity or a single beloved as the companion he called "you"; and Ashbery, the most difficult to read, traced his lineage back to the Italian mannerist Parmigianino, with whom he shared an instinct to distort and aestheticize reality.
These are high-flown examples, but my point is that any kind of writing--even on unromantic topics--wants for a greater return on investment than mere praise. It's lovely to be commended; sweeter yet to know that your words haven't died on the page, that they've stimulated reflection and reaction in others. Such feedback keeps our minds fertile and generative. Why do we publish personal writings, after all? Why are literary memoirs and diaries as vital as fiction? Because they're carriers of ideas and impulses that we hope will burn bright long after our bodies expire. Thus we vainly reach - even without children! - for that hard-won gift of posterity.
Ugh. Who was this presumptuous bastard?? I don't like it one bit--telling a woman you don't know at a bar that she MUST bear children.
ReplyDeletehm, he wasn't very sensitive but i guess it's important to him so it's just as well you found out soon enough to agree to disagree.
ReplyDeletei'm curious now, who are the other three? ;)
Interesting, I think he was right, I would agree with him, and why not have that conversation in a bar with a stranger? What's so wrong with that, by assuming that he is a "bastard" for being a male that tells a female at a 'bar' what he said, just shows that we have strict social rules by which we think and that makes us instinctively label people and places and topics of discussion, we build this shield being females assuming right away that every male that comes up to us and talks to us has only one thing in mind.... I mean, what's so bad in engaging him and having a full discussion about it? Its definitely an interesting topic.
ReplyDeleteIn the view of offspring, I will disagree with your comment on having "intellectual and literary offspring". Those are things that criminals and terrorists can be. Though I agree they are important, I would much rather invest in compassion and awareness of themselves, of others in the world, of the world, and of the importance of individual development.