Below is the twentieth in my 31 day writers series project; each day I feature a different person and ask three similar questions about a person's writing process. Yesterday I introduced a young man who is currently a first year college student. Today, I am introducing someone I met my first year at UC Santa Barbara.
Mark and I met in the dining hall through common acquaintances. Several of us were talking about something school related. We might have been discussing music, a class or the next dorm party. In college, students seemed free to discuss anything. Soon, Mark and I realized we were more interested in discussing some hybrid topic like the philosophy of music or "how to party musically." We wanted to combine new ideas and test what was useful.
We remained friends through college, even when Mark studied in Sweden. It was during Mark's year in Sweden that I learned about e-mail, In the late 80's, I had to go to a separate computer lab to send electronic messages. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to type electronic letters when someone could hand write messages.
After graduation, we drifted apart. We did not write or talk to each other for about fifteen years. And then, two years ago, we both wrote to each other at the same time. Seems strange, that during the current electronic communication age, two people could send messages that would pass each other, but it happened. I found him on Facebook or LinkedIn. He found me on the other site, and we didn't notice the message in our Inbox. Now we are friends again.
During our time apart, Mark has continued combining new ideas and testing them. This skill has helped him professionally. He has coached international business leaders and owned his own technology based communications companies. Mark also reads and writes constantly. Books. Messages. Blogs. Websites.
Please read his answers below, and notice how he seeks beauty everywhere. He also found beauty when he found his wife Melinda. Melinda Lewis is also a writer; she has written a book and started a magazine. Mark and Melinda are pictured below at their wedding. Melinda is on the far right.
Mark's responses below:
:-Good Fun!
1. Why do you write?
I write to distill my ideas down into their essence, so I can use the words like marble or structural steel with which to build a temple dedicated to Beauty. I hope to fascinate my reader, to compel you to dance with my ideas until you break a sweat, laughing with delight at what you now realize is possible. Each paragraph is a course in a gourmet meal, the flavors combining into an essay, each meal preparing your palette for the next promise on the menu.
I write to remember, and in remembrance of the awe I felt in the face of the insights that I want to remember. I want to capture them like a painter or a photographer, or a hunter if need be. I want proof and a record that they do (in fact) exist, something tangible I can point to if someone were doubtful or confused. Like a meaningful agreement, in which something important is on the line, I want it "in writing."
I write to understand, to continually deepen the self that understands. And I know I understand it when I can write it in a way that other people understand it. I want people to experience the beauty of the understanding that inspired me to write. I want the world to share in my inspiration and joy, so I can share in their inspiration and joy, onward and upward, forever. Amen.
2. What motivates or inspires you?
Beauty. More importantly, the fact that I can experience beauty, and that increasing my capacity to experience beauty is in itself beautiful. Whatever it was that caused atoms to form into molecules, molecules into cells, cells into organisms, and organisms into a human consciousness that can appreciate beauty… However you understand that divine principle at the heart of all life and consciousness, whatever you want to call the unrequestable gift that is human awareness, it is the spirit that inspires me. It is the motive power that motivates me, and the Telos towards which I move.
3 How do you get past writer's block?
I cheat. I make it a practice only to write about things that I am passionate about, so I am never blocked. In practice, if I am not inspired to write on a particular subject, I simply write about a subject I am. When I have a deadline or a writing commitment to meet, and I am not immediately inspired, I ask myself a variation on a question: "what is the single most important thing that I can say about this? What really matters?" Fortunately, there is always something crucial if not critical to be said about everything. However, if I do not say it, it might never be said. I cannot not that let happen. Hence, I write. My personal experience is that I've only become "blocked" when I "force myself" to write something "politically correct" instead of what I really think. Inauthenticity is the block, never the writing.
Here are a few of Mark's links
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