What use is writing?

What use is writing?


Reading Simone de Beauvoir’s memory “la force de l’age”, she claims to be a writer. Throughout all the tumult during her time, the legions of organizations being formed pro-proletariat etc, and despite her siding with them, she did not enjoin, she was a writer and wanted to stick to her matiere.
Reading this month’s Vanity Fair on Zimbabwe by Peter Godwin and the utterly biased article (not that I support at all by any means R. Mugabe), writing and the power of writing come back to mind (this time from the angle of bad reporting).


I love writing; the power of words, with purpose. And I wage an internal debate about writing, given that as people seem to be transfixed on the Olympics, South Ossetia and Georgia went to war.

Images of tanks rolling, plumes of white smoke post the bombardment, missiles being fired from Georgian to Russian troops appear intermittently amongst images of Phelps. This must be due to the fact that “all clocks run on Phelps Standard Time” per the NYT article. “Georgian time” must have been forgotten, relegated to a meeting between Putin and Bush during the Olympics. Given that one has admittedly looked into the “other’s soul” before (one can easily guess whom that is – tis not Putin), and knowing the fact that Russia is crucial to the US should the Iranian situation escalate further, the meeting must not have been a butting of heads. In fact, I daresay it must have gone similarly to the president’s encounter with Chinese leadership regarding Tibet. China and Russia flexing their muscle showing that demonstrations or pressure will not make them succumb to a weakened US power.

So why write then?

The question has been in my head for many years. My dislike for wasting time, had always conflicted with my love for letters. In particular now, in the face of such shifting world where forces are beyond the power of the writer to change and shape. The answer comes through a bridge rather than frontally – thru my other love – photography (I think of Dr Perlman’s solution to Poincare’s conjecture). I remind myself of James Nachtwey’s essay on “why photograph war?” and how he faces a similar question:

“Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behavior which has existed throughout history by means of photography? The proportions of that notion seem ridiculously out of balance. Yet, that very idea has motivated me.”

And his response to self:

“ if everyone could be there to see for themselves the fear and the grief, just one time, then they would understand that nothing is worth letting things get to the point where that happens to even one person, let alone thousands… But everyone cannot be there, and that is why photographers go there - to show them…. and shake people out of their indifference.”

Not dissimilar then to writing then, which even if it is read by one another individual – not a person of the masses – since then it would fall on deaf ears, has fulfilled its purpose and should be done. In Ecce Homo, Nietzche denies the power of reading (and almost then by corollary the power of purposeful writing? Have not explored that angle, but maybe) given that a person only sees in a book its own experience – hence new experiences cannot be transmitted (my analysis – but willing to be corrected!); but I disagree. It is true of the large majority of individuals but not of all. And those few that read and have the sensitivity and werewithal to change, is the intended public anyhow.

So we start NomadVoice again, as a blog, as something. Something because people must write, read, cooperate and understand. Because as people are watching the Olympics – have nothing against them and absolutely love them (attached my favourite image of the Olympics thus far [young chinese gymnasts] – China’s discipline exemplified), there are others such as the attached indigenous people telling their stories dilapidated buildings in Rio (attached an image) and tanks rolling and firing in the South Ossetia conflict (attached an image). Thankfully, the world does not run in someone else’s Standard Time; only its own.

Wilbert from Rio

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