Prose, truth, and a little about love

Describing that which can not be described is the eternal quest for the writer and poet alike. Love, hate, loneliness, and a host of other subjects visited by the classics as well as the contemporaries seem still to lack definitions. Not dictionary definitions, but rather definitions in the sense of understanding.

We could look up love in the dictionary and find a sentence well suited to Webster: "A strong affection." Well, that completely says it all, or does it?

Let's look at a question. Can a writer write about something they have never experienced? Can interviews and tape recordings of other people speaking of their experiences give the writer the ability to write about it, or even make the writer an expert on the subject? Or, does a writer need to actually experience first hand in order to write about such things as love, hate, wonder, and discovery?

I have never experienced first hand the fury of battle or slaying of a dragon, but I am able to write about it. Or at least, I am able to write about what I imagine it would be like.

If people read what I have writen and believe what the words on the page say to them, is it my fault they don't question what I write, knowing full well that I have never slain a dragon? Or, if I write of love, how can they be sure my words are of love? Or of what I have felt or what I feel love really should be? Love is a bad example for I know what love is and I will gladly share my viewpoints on such.

So we read stories and fables and seek to understand the truth, where the truth is no more than what the writer has imagined and decided the truth should be, instead of truth as it is.

The challenge is how to read such a tale, how to believe it, and yet, how to discern the truth in the mind of the writer from the truth as it is mirrored by reality, reality that is all encompassing and by it's very nature can not lie about itself.

8/4/97, day of the typewriter

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