Is It Dangerous To Write? By Warren Bull

 Is It Dangerous To Write?  By Warren Bull

Image from Jens Johnsson on Upsplash

I believe writing is a way to open yourself, your deepest thoughts, desires, and fears to people who don’t know you and don’t give a damn about you personally. Everyone who reads what you wrote is free to attach whatever individual issues they have to your writing to attribute the result to you. Good writing leaves the author with nowhere to hide. I’ve been accused of being a hide-bound conservative and a flaming radical, being too smart and too stupid, and being out of touch due to my sheltered ivy-tower position, although I’ve never had an academic job. 

I’m not the only author who feels this way.

“I don't know what to say about this book. The experience on which it is founded is so extraordinary, that an honest record of it should be preserved . . . But it would have driven me mad; and I am not sure that the author came out of it without a slight derangement.”

George Bernard Shaw, 

Man and Superman

“It is not merely enough to love literature if one wishes to spend one's life as a writer. It is a dangerous undertaking on the most primitive level. For, it seems to me, the act of writing with serious intent involves enormous personal risk. It entails the ongoing courage for self-discovery. It means one will walk forever on the tightrope, with each new step presenting the possibility of learning a truth about oneself that is too terrible to bear.” 

Harlan Ellison, Brain Dreams

“I like dangerous writing. I think for the most part we could use a little more danger in writing.  This might be why I love reading books that are banned or people think should be banned.  I am just that girl you tell me I can’t do something or not to read something and I will read it and decide on my own. Although this may be more the result of being an adult child of pretty well educated hippies so as much as I love the good music, good writing, I also love a good sit in, protest or freedom ride.” 

Caitlin Hennessey, First Step Out

“The invention of writing gave people the luxury of thinking apart from the tribe without the concern of those thoughts disappearing. As reading and writing became available to more and more people, the community was no longer needed to retain teachings, traditions, or identity. And because the tasks of reading and writing often encourage being alone, tribes and communities can be fractured as people spend greater amounts of time in private. This isolation creates the conditions necessary for a strong sense of individualism to emerge. In pre-literate societies, a person’s identity is bound to the tribe; the notion of the individual has little importance.

However, the technology of writing, regardless of content, weakens and even destroys tribal bonds and profoundly amplifies the value of the individual.”

Shane Hipps, Flickering Pixels

When you get alone, this is where brilliance happens. You start pondering and dreaming and remembering. You look inwardly, examining your life and thoughts and deepest-held beliefs. And you may question them. You may even dismiss them. This is why writers are dangerous. This is why we must temper our questions with being grounded in some central truths that guide our life. Because it is not always enough to question authority. You have to follow something bigger than yourself — you must commit yourself to an ideal, a perfect standard by which you measure your life. Otherwise, you’re just another punk writer.

 Jeff Goins, The Art Of Work

“You can’t straighten up during writing and then hunch back down when you let go of the pen.  Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth, and it spreads out from the page into all of our life, and it should.  Otherwise, there is too much of a schism between who we are as writers and how we live our daily lives.  That is the challenge: to let writing teach us about life and life about writing.  Let it flow back and forth.”

Natalie Goldberg, Let The Whole Thundering World Come Home

What do you think?