Eating my Words

“We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom.”  ~ E. O. Wilson

“A healthful hunger for a great idea is the beauty and blessedness of life.”  ~ Jean Ingelow

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”  ~ Benjamin Franklin

I’m starving.

It’s not like it bothers me from day to day.  In fact, it doesn’t even phase me most of the time (probably because I am too busy for my own good), but the subtle cramps in the pit emerge periodically, reminding me that I haven’t digested in a while.

The ideas come, but I don’t see them to completion and they are not very filling.

I need to chew on some actual words.

Remember the blog entry from March 9, 2011 about the faithful little avocado tree?  Well, again I have allowed myself to slip into the trap of social media, the land where stalking two hundred of my closest friends is infinitely easier than reflecting on my own experiences and producing, in turn, a valuable and coherent set of observations.  I tend to not be a very insightful person, not too sensitive or intuitive.  I know some would want to argue that with me, but if I have ever showed that side of myself to you, know that it was a stretch.  Those things just don’t come naturally to me.  It’s not that I don’t want to be that way; it’s just not how I am wired.  So, my commitment to make this blogging space “something meaningful or nothing at all” comes back to bite me.

Especially when I am busy, and I am.  But what kind of excuse is that, because who of us isn’t, really?

I have a nearly-full time job and the store is only open until 4:00, five days per week. The laundry must be brought down from the line before the afternoon rains move in.  And cooking requires more ingenuity (and time) than I usually have left to enthusiastically produce.

So when would I write?

It is difficult enough to keep up with newsletters and other correspondence with our wonderful prayer and financial partners who make it possible for us to be here.  Extra things get lost.  (Okay, I admit it … sometimes those basic things get lost, too.)

So I am toying with the thought of eating my words.  I have said many times that I don’t want this blog to be a place where I recount “what we did today” just for the sake of keeping a log. 

Yet, I keep thinking about some missionary friends here who send out an update every one or two weeks.  No PDF.  No theme.  No fancy formatting.  Just “what have we been up to” with humor and grace.  Is there a place for that in this blog?  Would people want to read that?  (Should it even matter if people want to read it?)

What do you think?  Should I just let go of my high and lofty expectations of myself and my writing (i.e., stop being a blog snob) and actually put strings of words out there for others to nibble on?  I think maybe it’s time.  Even if my parents are the only ones who will read it.

And even if they don’t.

I hope that I can periodically also produce thought-provoking observations about life, as time and energy allows, but I think the grumblings in my gut are saying I simply need to write, to process, to discover.  To grow.

I tried to do the NaNoWriMo Challenge again last November when we were in the US.  My children wanted me to write a story that had been brewing in my daughter’s head.  I got several thousand words strung together in a pretty decent yarn, but did not achieve 50k.  But, the whole point of the NaNoWriMo is to just put words out there.  Just write.  Throw caution (and in my case compulsion) to the wind and eke out a stream of consciousness.

Ironically, it was Ernest Hemingway who said,

“There is nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

Oh, and that little avocado tree that could?  He’s about three feet tall now.  While I don't particularly envy his fortunate location in the middle of a leach field, at least he’s eating pretty well.