1 post tagged “perserverance”

I am reading hooks' "Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work," and I am struck by how much I love bell hooks' writing. She talks about things that I think NEED to be talked about: the rapture of writing, the need for black women to find and use their literary voices. The fact that no black woman can write too much. I have always thought that her belief that racism, sexism, and classism are all linked and cannot be separated was right on. In other words, when I started reading bell hooks nearly 10 years ago, it was wonderful to read her because she articulated things that I didn't even have words for yet. 

She still does that, particularly in "Remembered Rapture," particularly as I begin writing again, and really thinking about the craft of writing.

But bell needs to recognize that she is not the most accessible writer on the block. I don't mean that there are problems with comprehension. To the contrary, she does wonderful things with words that really illuminate the intention behind what she's trying to communicate.

But as I like to say, "Who's reading bell hooks in the hood?" I'm not saying that folks in the hood can't understand what she's saying or won't be able to connect to the material. I'm saying that they just don't know she's there. I sure as hell didn't...until I got to college. Now do I think that folks in the hood (and everywhere else) should be reading bell? Yep. Is she on their radar? Nope. Which is fine. My bone to pick with bell is that she doesn't own up to the fact that she is more academic than salt-of-the-earth. She, unlike a lot of academics, is unafraid of using the first person to talk about things, but still, the fact that she has some letters behind her name, and that she has/is a professor, is all over her writing. Cool. Just accept that and stop acting like you are giving away copies of "Sisters of the Yam" on the corner out the back seat of your hatchback.

Anyway...from bell hooks to Buddhist practice. Writing to Buddhist practice. I'm sure now they call it "practice" for a reason. I was going strong, and then I had all these questions...and honestly, my somewhat subconscious disdain for and distrust of organized religion in any form reared its ugly head. And I just stopped. So now I'm back on and I realize that I'm no different from anybody else who pursues something. You fall off sometimes. But you practice, practice, practice and just get back on.

Writing and Buddhist practice have that in common. Both, at this point, are pretty important to me. Sometimes - oftentimes, actually - I don't even like the stuff I'm writing. I'm very critical. And I want to be one of those people that writes SOMETHING everyday. Maybe one day soon, I will be one of those people. But for right now, I'm not. I go away from writing sometimes, just like sometimes I am not very diligent about my Buddhist practice. I try not to get into that whole beating yourself up thing. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.

But I just try to get back on.