Why read when you could write?

Why read when you could write?

Why read when you could write? A good hypothetical question, it would go well in a superficial popular literature novel or an inspirational email, but there are practical responses to this question, both in support and in opposition.
Why read? One hears and experiences another’s temporary condition as a human. From a post modern perspective, there is no universal truth and all voices have an equal worth and history in constituting a universal dialogue. One also experiences new constructions and patterns. In Charles Baudelaire’s “Au lecteur,” why is the monster “ennui” delicate through the eyes of the poet? In Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Der Schwan,” the swan dips into the pool – the end of human life. How is it a “letting himself fall” (Sich-Niederlassen) through the perspective of the writer?
Reading in a language other than one’s own native tongue leads to fleeting thoughts in pure image. For example, reading “J’ai une tasse de café,” (I have a cup of coffee), one takes the word “tasse de café,” (cup of coffee) extracts the metaphysical entity of the object (whatever it may be), and rewraps it in English symbols – semantics – “cup of coffee.” This becomes all the more interesting as one reads of the Spanish duende or the French oubli or ennui, which do not translate neatly or readily into English. Last night while looking at the stars through my bedroom window, I attempted to find a word, in any language known to me, for a specific feeling or tendency – I found none. I feel that my thoughts, like those of the other seven billion on this planet, are hazy, vague mazes of symbols – words – encoded into our proper tongues, which dissipate like steam into the indifferent heavens.
Why read when I could write? There is a desire for connectedness and cohesion among peoples, and sharing a voice, a history, is a link in this connectivity. There is both room for and a need of the voice of a new father, a dying child, a lonesome naturalist, a social philologist, all speaking their native tongues infused with unique mindsets and worldviews. They do not speak in idle, and for true relation we must listen, dwell upon, and share one another’s voices and histories.
Why read when I could write? Because Leonard Cohen said it best in 1967 with “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye:”
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm
Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm
Yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new in the city
And in the forest, they smile like me and you
But now it’s come to distances, and both of us must try
Your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.
Could I express any better the early morning sentiments of waking up next to a lover in late summer? I feel moved even writing these lies of another in my own crooked hand. I never saw my lover’s hair as a “sleepy golden storm,” though I knew that millions of others, including Cohen, have previously felt this elation, that we are not “new in the city.” I was bewildered at the moment I heard this song after my liaison. The song became my voice – I had nothing to add to the history. As an artist, I felt that my work was already completed for me. Did Cohen write this song for Marianne Ihlen on the Greek island of Hydra? For a different lover in a different place? Was it Baudelaire’s thoughts or Lorca’s? Akhmatova’s or Rumi’s? My own?
The question is: Was my moment of resignation in uttering my sentiments the birth or death of my artistic voice? An ignoble moment or a step towards growth? A fleeting instant or a critical period? I felt connected to Cohen when I received his interpretation of a morning after, though I offered no private history or voice. I acknowledged and experienced his morning with Marianne. Though Veronica only listened to my song “White Morning Dress,” she acknowledged my recounting of her beauty during a typical Spanish morning, wearing a simple white cotton dress. She experienced my perspective and a connection was thus established between us. The next time one picks a flower for a woman and she tucks it in her hair, may my voice suffice:
And then climbing your neighbor’s fence,
I clipped a purple flower
And tucked it among your curls
I’ve still got a beautiful photo.
The photo, in a physical sense, is lost. The image however lives in the song and in the imagination of all those who have heard it and share the feeling of an idyllic scenario loved, lost, and cherished in a memory. The image now lives in you who have just read the verse. In this sense a song, that is, writing or an utterance, has a life – it connects lives and thus unifies people. The following terms have a significant meaning and merit meditation:
1) The life of a song – A song, once written and released, takes on a life in its ability to speak, interact and share a history.
2) A song of lives – A song can travel among many lives. “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” has lived on Songs of Leonard Cohen and in my former residence in Columbus, Ohio. “White Morning Dress” resided in my head and reverberated in my room during a winter as I explored melodies and chord patterns. It also lives in Murcia, Spain, Veronica having experienced and cherished it.
3) Songs of life – Songs of life are what we read, write, hear and sing throughout the duration of our time on this planet – our human condition.

Would this letter mean anything to you if written in Old Church Slavonic, a 9th century literary language devised exclusively to translate the Bible? No, but the scholar of dead languages would potentially feel a relation to it, though maybe bothered by the fact that an ancient language is borrowing modern words like “computer” or referencing a poet from the 1960’s, Leonard Cohen, or a young man in American in 2009.
Why write instead of read? Why give when I could receive? Why speak when I could listen? Why read when I could write? Why listen when I could think? Why share when I could hide? Why hide when I could experience?
Banish these questions and do both. Connection is a two way effort and it is equally meaningful to receive as it is to give. If we all spoke and offered voices, there would be no recognition or movement of histories or experiences. We will learn when to offer our own histories, and when to love and mourn those of others. To this end, listen and write, receive and speak. Both ends are infinitely and equally valuable in our quest for connection, the development of artistic vision, and relation of our unique voices to one another’s condition as sentient human beings.