Write About It
Oct. 21st, 2024 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootHmm.
Someone close suggested I try writing about my cancer, that maybe I could create something interesting or useful or inspirational that might help folk facing it.
I started but the trouble is this; the only thing cancers have in common is suffering, and people cannot be reading about suffering for too long. I began tagging my cancer entries, but I didn't like the ominous, almost poetically apt, growth of that tag getting bigger with each post. It was a bit too much like sympathetic magic. My experience has been quite dull though the journal format helps by dividing it into paragraphs and snippets. And as with so much of my life, there are elements of unreality/surreality that make it an unlikely fit. I got cancer so I went to Vietnam isn't exactly a moment of shared experience for many, if anything it might smack heavily of privilege.
Privilege can be an issue. A while back, friends suffering from cancer were talking about Kate Middleton's statement on the subject. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r816BonxBZs ) From some quarters there came that sense of not feeling aligned because... well because the video is full of sunshine and green woods, picnics and sand dunes, smiling children, families together and lifting one's face to tomorrow. It's meant to be a message of hope and resilience, telling sufferers that there is something to live for. It is, let's face it, the job of a modern Royal Family member, literally chin up with added filters. It may not sit so well with those who would feel more understood if the story showed Kate going through it as they do, in the presence of ugliness and pain. Misery loves company... but that's not always a cruel thing. Sometimes it's the cry of the most lonely, just to be reassured that others are human the way they are human. I don't feel it but I can see it.
My take is that no-one owes anyone else a slice of their sorrow, even if the desire for it is understandable. If Kate Middleton's way of getting through this is to present a heart-lifting image, if she looks at that video and feels gratified, then it works for her and that is enough. If it works for others too, that's great. After all, practically speaking, there is little point in demonstrating unpleasant possibilities that may just put people off getting help. They'll learn if they have to but first they mustn't be scared away from diagnosis.
And for myself? Once my own experience of this is done, and properly put away, it may be time to look see if I can help by listening, turning up at fundraisers, something like that. But my heart and mind together tell me that this is not a book, not a script, not an inspirational quote. It just is, and that must be enough.
Someone close suggested I try writing about my cancer, that maybe I could create something interesting or useful or inspirational that might help folk facing it.
I started but the trouble is this; the only thing cancers have in common is suffering, and people cannot be reading about suffering for too long. I began tagging my cancer entries, but I didn't like the ominous, almost poetically apt, growth of that tag getting bigger with each post. It was a bit too much like sympathetic magic. My experience has been quite dull though the journal format helps by dividing it into paragraphs and snippets. And as with so much of my life, there are elements of unreality/surreality that make it an unlikely fit. I got cancer so I went to Vietnam isn't exactly a moment of shared experience for many, if anything it might smack heavily of privilege.
Privilege can be an issue. A while back, friends suffering from cancer were talking about Kate Middleton's statement on the subject. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r816BonxBZs ) From some quarters there came that sense of not feeling aligned because... well because the video is full of sunshine and green woods, picnics and sand dunes, smiling children, families together and lifting one's face to tomorrow. It's meant to be a message of hope and resilience, telling sufferers that there is something to live for. It is, let's face it, the job of a modern Royal Family member, literally chin up with added filters. It may not sit so well with those who would feel more understood if the story showed Kate going through it as they do, in the presence of ugliness and pain. Misery loves company... but that's not always a cruel thing. Sometimes it's the cry of the most lonely, just to be reassured that others are human the way they are human. I don't feel it but I can see it.
My take is that no-one owes anyone else a slice of their sorrow, even if the desire for it is understandable. If Kate Middleton's way of getting through this is to present a heart-lifting image, if she looks at that video and feels gratified, then it works for her and that is enough. If it works for others too, that's great. After all, practically speaking, there is little point in demonstrating unpleasant possibilities that may just put people off getting help. They'll learn if they have to but first they mustn't be scared away from diagnosis.
And for myself? Once my own experience of this is done, and properly put away, it may be time to look see if I can help by listening, turning up at fundraisers, something like that. But my heart and mind together tell me that this is not a book, not a script, not an inspirational quote. It just is, and that must be enough.
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no subject
Date: 2024-10-21 01:21 pm (UTC)In general I've found that I don't want to write about, or certainly not directly, the experiences in my life that have been most impactful. (There are exceptions to this, but in general.) It's almost like they go off limits--exactly the opposite of what's supposed to happen. If you have a cool (or, in your case, terribly traumatic) experience, share it! But no. I mean, it all goes into the personal-experience compost bin, and the compost eventually helps fertilize creative output, but ...
And with cancer, there are so many clichés, almost, of how to share about the experience. Kate Middleton's way is one. So is getting a tattoo that says fuck cancer. And: valid! For both those things. But I can definitely understand not wanting to channel your experience into those or other channels. You're a thoughtful (in the sense of: you think about things), compassionate person, and as you move through life, you'll surely use this experience to help others where it would help others, whether you write about it or not.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-22 08:12 am (UTC)For me, writing about trauma is the neutering, a kind of divorce from the experience. If I can pin it down, it is not alive. The more I write it the less power I find in it.
It's different when I write about things that delight me, or stories I want to tell. But even then, if I want it to be good writing, my distance is as important as my love. The good thing about a journal is that there's no need to always hold myself to such a standard.