The Slow Assembler

I can be a pretty logical guy when I want to be. I enjoy a little algebraic thinking now and again. It’s fun when I can show that if A = B, and B = C, then A = C. In many ways, writing is about showing the connection between things that appear from one perspective to be utterly disconnected. In that moment when the connection is revealed life collapses just a little, from a disparate collection of independent forms or thoughts to an integrated world, where the many serve the whole. It’s a lovely thing, but I can’t become too enamored of my rational mind, no matter how athletic and proud it feels after one of its success. As Einstein pointed out, it is only a servant of the intuition. My rational mind, however, does not like to see itself as anyone’s servant. When things are going well for him, he is The King. He rules an iron kingdom of incontrovertible truths, truths built of the solid and knowable bricks of facts and bound by the sure mortar of logic. Come into his castle and be safe from the storms of preference and prejudice.

Things do not always go well for him, however. He’s fabulous at building things, but not so good at knowing what to build. In fact, he hasn’t a clue. At some point he looks from up from his throne and sees all the other castles around him. There are as many castles as there are kings and queens. All of them are correct. In that moment, his castle falls. It protects him from nothing.

Until, of course, he receives his instructions again. Now he is happy once more, helping to build what wants to be built. He doesn’t know why it wants to be built, and if he’s honest he admits that he doesn’t care. The why’s belong to something else. He is the slow assembler who must pull together all the parts that form what something else saw and knew in an instant.

Write Within Yourself: An Author's Companion. "A book to keep nearby whenever your writer's spirit needs feeding." Deb Caletti.

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