All I Know in Life I Know from Doing, All I Know about Writing I Know from Reading

To which the sarcast would retort both aren’t much and thus I haven’t done nor read much, but it takes a skilled and great sarcast to think of those and oversee the juxtaposition in the title.

I never learned how to write. Grammar was nothing I was ever interested in, French grammar and the oh so loathed “subjonctif” being the exception to the rule. Yet, I always wrote and the closer that Whoosh sound came, the better my output flew.

That isn’t to say that I had great output, definitely not because for the largest part of my life I have written in not native tongue, but in French, German, and nowadays in English. Three languages whose grammar never interested me beyond one exception. An exception because it was deemed to be one of the most difficult rules to master.

“The chicken soup is a beautiful thing. Come here when you're on the edge of death or have a minor cold, one or the other.
If you’re not kosher for God’s sake don’t come here for the steak or the dairy-free ice cream. Why do that when you can go to a restaurant where the steaks bleed and the ice cream involved a cow, like it should? I think my antipathy towards the picky-eating god of the Jews is well known. I’m fully expecting to hear soon that the Jewish Lord has discovered he’s gluten intolerant and, while we’re at it, that lactose brings him out in hives.”
— Jay Rayner, author, Jazz musician, resident restaurant critic for the Observer

I read, I read lots. Although not enough either, luckily that was not a New Year’s resolution.

I write not as much as I would love to but I write every day. Most of it isn’t published [publicly]. Each time when I sit down and start writing, no matter whether by hitting the keys on a collection of 104 keys or me being a dual thumbs virtuoso on my phone, it is an exercise. An effort to find a “flow”.

Jay Rayner with Jeff Goldblum - photo via the Guardian

More often than not I only have an entry point. Usually I even know what I want to say but I lack the other 24 characters to complete the story. It flows or it doesn’t.

Writing is pretty much like life.

“The answer — and, in a sense, the tragedy of life — is that we seek to understand the goal and not the man. We set up a goal which demands of us certain things: and we do these things. We adjust to the demands of a concept which CANNOT be valid. When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel reasonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. Why? Because your perspective has changed. It’s not the fireman who has changed, but you. Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.”

“So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?“
— Hunter S. Thompson, Finding Your Purpose

I never had a real purpose in life. Some would say I’m an opportunist, I prefer to think of myself as an eternal student of life. Even though I never went to University - or College depending on your roots. I figured it wasn’t worth going because I would most likely drop out nevertheless.

Yet, two decades later I guest lectured about social media to a journalism class. The funny twists in life.

I floated.

Floating allowed me to discover my true self. If ever there was an actual goal - beyond short term objectives - it was the subconscious search and discovery of oneself.

I love trying my hand at a humorous piece. But I never set out to write funny or sarcastic content. It flows or it doesn’t. A purpose won’t restrict my style or improve it, sadly enough.

Yet, each piece I write is an exercise. An exercise to become a better writer, to become as good as the people I love reading.

Some day I will be.

Nobody knows whether I will become a great, or even a good author. Nobody knows whether I will end up being a boring writer or one with wit. More likely than not, sarcasm and snark will be pillars in it, so will a touch of... ego and/or self-confidence.

The perks of floating and doing things merely for joy.

I love writing, it keeps me alive and keeps my inner exploration on track. The internet harbors more life of mine than many have in photographs on Crackbook.

If not hidden on blogs or on the Wayback Machine, then as downloaded archives now hosted in a cloud storage account.

Imagine that we were still dependent on typewriters. Or, like the master of horror, also considered the typewriter of one’s love a reason to become engaged and eventually marry.

As a child, when at my grandparents, I only had a mechanical typewriter. I think I want a typewriter again.

All I know about writing I know from reading. Maybe it isn’t much but it’s enough to keep going and keep the words flowing. My life is scattered out over the cloud and I wrote the whole story myself.

For myself and to myself.