In response to
Writing is more than teaching, learning, or self-expression…Writing is Connection
It is a common misconception, repeated by many creatives: I create to express myself, as if that is the end. As if there is no importance or meaning in the interactions that follow. As if we create in a vacuum.
I find myself repeatedly reading this excerpt from In a Different Voice by Carol Gilligan (bold is mine):
“By voice I mean voice. Listen, I will say, thinking that in one sense the answer is simple. And then I will remember how it felt to speak when there was no resonance, how it was when I began writing, how it still is for many people, how it still is for me sometimes. To have a voice is to be human. To have something to say is to be a person. But speaking depends on listening and being heard; it is an intensely relational act.”
The term “self-expression,” disturbs me. Too often, it is worn as a protective coat, enabling unbounded egoism and complete ignorance of the external world. Ironically, it also promotes the mentality that criticism should be taken personally—after all, if you criticize the expression of my self, you are in essence criticizing me. But worst of all, reducing art to self-expression robs artists of the deep vulnerability that we all share, the same vulnerability that drives us.
Writing is the desire to have a voice, and to be heard. This desire to connect is the artist’s greatest vulnerability, and her ultimate purpose.
There are many ways that we obscure this truth. To say that one should write to learn rather than teach avoids this truth by completely leaving it out of the conversation. It is a seductive sentiment, but learning and teaching are not mutually exclusive—the best teachers are always doing both. Great teachers consistently learn while they teach, because they know that they must connect with their students. Great teachers know that they must give their students a voice, and hear them.
By saying that writing is connection, I do not say that writing is always for a public audience. At times, we keep our voices private, and choose to only be heard by ourselves. Writing is a beautiful tool for deepening connections to our many selves.
