I am sorry that the art of literature is dying. Books are not the delight they were for me and my mother. She’s the one who gifted me with the Spanish poets, the existentialists, and Flannery O’Conner. “Hulga.” Thanks, Mom.

But, what are we doing today to combat the slip into ignorance? Or is it too late? My kids are tok-focused, brand-hungry, and somewhat mindless about their approach to life. Where would I be without literature? The awakenings I didn’t have to experience in my own life, that I never could have, colored me for life. Holden Caulfield. Never would I ever get his voice out of my head. I have to write around him, against him, to not come off as a “phony.”

My mom used to offer a “book store” trip as a treat for being patient while running errands. Sometimes she would let me stay in the big bed after the divorce and read. Books were magic. Space. Magic. Spiritual awakenings. Our minds need shepherds. TikTok and reality tv shows are not the way. The dumbing down of our minds has come on more quickly since the smartphone. Wait until AI catches hold of all of our entertainment. Imagine limitless and infinite Marvel Universe movies. Mindless. Blowing up stuff. Fun. Or, hell, as I might characterize it.

Where do our kid’s minds go when they scroll, swipe, giggle, and share? I guess it’s better than… What? Drinking? Smoking dope? Addicted to our phone screens, it’s not a pretty sight. And someone, anyone, needs to do something to reverse our technological slide into Babble. Soon, I won’t be able to communicate with my 22-year-old daughter. She’s so wrapped up in trends, brands, and celebrities… Well, okay, my daughter’s got her act together. But her mind is void of self-soothing, self-energizing, self-actualizing thoughts. None. Not one. She’s 100% impulse. She’s accomplished everything we’ve asked of her. A graduated nurse with a job in the same city I live in. Yay.

How do we regain language? Poetry? Artistic expression?

Creativity is not an escape, it’s a doorway into our own minds. What I paint or draw, write, or sing, all processing and sorting of my life, loves, and desires. I am having deep conversations with myself about life, what I want now, at my age, single, sixty-two. I don’t have a book to help me contemplate it. I could look for a show or some distraction. I could spend a lot of time on dating sites trying to entice the perfect muse. I won’t. I don’t need a muse. The muse is in my head.

I have to listen.

I have to have the skills and interests to build my own architectures of the mind. I put up new buildings all the time. New containers for poems, stories, even a sci-fi epic that requires maps and diagrams to keep things straight. And when I close my eyes at night, my coordinated thoughts, my river of mind, can be channeled. I can find calm and quiet by focusing my mind. In my process it often involves my creative work. I can get a title for a new book bubbling up in my mind.

For example, “Portrait of the Artist as a Disappointment” is a title I’ve been dreaming on, both awake and in the twilight moments before and after sleep. I strum the title in my mind. My LLLM (large living language model) lights up with ideas, images, and energy. That’s the thing. We’re all seeking energy. Excitement. What gets you going? What breathes life into your thoughts? How do you focus them toward your goals?

I write.

I’m afraid my daughter and son do not have this skill. This massive mapping process for aligning my thoughts and actions toward a goal. Sure, not all of this is about writing, but the conversation that starts in my mind is me, my consciousness. As I established my own inner voice, I began to cultivate more positive thoughts. I began to let go of the regrets and mistakes of my past. I’m even working on allowing the moment, the now, the present, to just be. No force. No action. Just pause and observe. It is in the capture, the writing, however, that my mind can articulate the size and color of the feeling, the project, the moment, the motion. What’s the emotion that’s driving me? What am I so worried about? Why can’t I stop thinking about this?

When I listen my mind gives me clues. I’d like a few things in my life to be different. I can either work toward those ideas, those goals, or I can suppress my rage and disappointment that I have not accomplished my dreams yet. By finding the grooves of my own life, my own process, I can then use the writing (capture and recall) to generate the energy and the consistency to keep going. Whatever the dream is, whatever the project is, it is the hope that fuels the journey.

One example is my tv show. I’ve been writing about my divorce and the emotional fallout of losing my time with my kids for over fourteen years. The event shaped my life. Writing gave me voice. Writing allowed me to transform the anger, depression, and loss into something else. My own healing journey has been shared and read millions of times, thanks to the internet. I have given my own story a place to live, to grow, to evolve. I am no longer a single dad, a divorced dad, I’m just a dad. Most of us are divorced, right? As I’ve moved through the waves of emotions I’ve journaled and captured as much of the experience as I could. A few years ago a high school friend asked me to write a tv series from the blog. I did. I’m still working on it. The current pilot is in the quarterfinals of a national tv pilot competition. That’s perseverance.

I want to wake up the culture again. Reading is the key. Learning to read. To unhook what you know of reality and let the author take you somewhere new. Learning to write and express your inner thoughts is a therapeutic process of recovery. You don’t even have to know it. You just have to do it.

In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron gives us the gift of the morning pages. Starting a dialogue with your own mind, your own voice. Learning to comfort, counsel, and redirect yourself. Vital skills for the coming storms of life.

Nothing is easy. But, if you don’t begin to draw your own star maps, roadmaps, plans, dream journals, you’re unlikely to find where the treasure is buried. Listen to your mind. Prompt yourself and give time for the answer to be returned. Slow down. Learn to read again. Learn to write again. Learn to dialogue with yourself.

John McElhenney – artist

ai prompt for image: abstract expressionist painting of a snowy night in tokyo

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