Medicating the Malaise

Malaise is a highly non-specific symptom and causes can range from the slightest ailment, such as an emotion or hunger, to the most serious. Generally speaking, malaise expresses a patient's feeling that "something is not right", like a general warning light, but only a medical examination can determine the cause. ~ Condun

Along the wall of every living room, there should live a bookcase. Whether it is home to four hard cover favorites, or one hundred soon-to-be-read paperbacks, the goal should be the same: give ready access to the words and subjects that define your mental landscape.

Lofty wording, huh? It cannot be helped. I could edit that sentence twenty times, and I would still sound pompous. In reality, I just love superfluous language, and whatever snobbish tone that creates is entirely incidental. But more than that - more than any need to indulge in nuanced definitions and vocabulary - is the healing effect of language that sets my tongue loose. The craft of story telling elevates the spirit, and its creations are a balm when the battle of life directs its arrows at your back.

Ambitious writing, whether in prose or poetry, creates a reaction; for a reader in search of something, the writing is transformative in some way, revealing a new perspective or answer to some grand debate; but, for those readers who stumble upon good writing, quite without intention or conscious thought, the reaction is reaffirming. And the best kinds of reading accidents end with reaffirmation of something once lost – like an idea or personal truth – and they do so against all logic or design.

And those things that do best please me/
That befal preposterously.
~ Puck (A Misummer Night's Dream, III, ii)

If at any point I feel stressed or discontent with my circumstances, I can cure those symptoms of malaise by seeking out my favorite works. It might surprise you to know that one of those favorites is actually an email from an old professor; another is the a poem I wrote as a unschooled 11 year old; a third is from more "recognized" sources of authorship (as is the rest of the list).  

At this precise point in time, I am wrestling with a feeling of discontent. No, not the job hopping kind. I need to table that instinct for a few years. I just feel...incomplete. For all my successes, and all the positive changes of 2012, there is something that feels simply "not quite right."  But of course, I already know the problem: I have been ignoring all creative outlets in the name of technical achievement. And it has left me feeling the contradictory sensations of career triumph and creative apathy. They are not good bedfellows.

Fortunately, a well written sentence can be the bullet that shatters your isolation.

And it can reset the course of your "creative health."

Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing device in books that brings them to their perfect readers... 
~ Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary & Potatoe Peel Society

 

One rather mundane morning, I found myself driving to work, with 10 things warring for the front spot in my thoughts, and paying far too little attention to driving. I looked up and realized that in the stressful stupor of the morning, I had found myself parked in front of Barnes & Noble. Quite without intention.

I was there. And my feet seemed to be on a mission through the parking lot.

I walked down the aisles, without a glance to my left or to my right; I passed the suggestion shelves and turned down the third aisle of Fiction, and stopped in front of a normal shelf. I reached out, snagged a book, turned heel and walked straight to the cash register. 

It was 9:15 in the morning, I barely had coffee in my system, I had no intention of going to the book store, and yet there I was, the new owner of a book whose title I did not recognize. 

Well. I suppose I am putting a bid in for eccentric 20-something after all?

Reseated in my Sonata, and once again reunited with my coffee tumbler, I finally opened the page. The first line so surprised and touched me, that I actually remember gasping. I knew, without any proof, that I was brought to that book. I believe that it summoned me, just as surely as I believe that it is 2012 and my mother's name is Patricia.  The writing reminded me of the argument that I have "responsibly" ignored in my head for nearly a year: I crave stories, and the editorialist's witty observations about modern life, and the intentional run on sentence, and all the things that a technical writing career asks you to set aside for success. And a few well placed words brought all of that crashing into me like a bullet, leaving me breathless, sore and in desperate need of a change in course.

Maria Duenas medicated my malaise with a beautiful and violent introduction:

A typewriter shattered my destiny. 

 * From the novel The Time in Between