Thursday, December 12, 2013

As an Author, I am Entirely the Same and Yet I am Not





As I was leafing through the pages of my draft for my upcoming novel, this thought hit me: As an author, I am entirely the same and yet I am not. Really? How can something "similar" be "different"?

Some people probably told you, "Of course, it's STILL ME! I haven't CHANGED at all." Interesting. Are you sure you haven't changed at all?

Let's base it on myself.

I look entirely the same. Entirely. One word. One meaning: Completely. It also denotes the similarities of being totally, wholly, utterly and absolutely the same as dictionaries have noted. But my perception of “entirely the same” may not be what others may think of.

I am entirely the same person: with traits that may go this way and that, depending on the calmness, severity or immediacy of the circumstances. If I say that, will you see a disturbance of the oneness of the statement, where certain traits may differ depending on the situation?

I am entirely the same in the way I brush my hair, leaving a few strands framing my forehead and sweeping the rest of them upwards in a bun or in a pony, depending on the attire I’m wearing or the coldness or hotness of the climate. From that, will you not inform me that different ways of fixing my hair show variety in my choices?

I am entirely the same person when I write, with all the different voices that may befit a particular audience or a book genre that I’m trying to finish. For this, you may say that various voices, styles or genres do not share the same thread of thought.

Do you see where I’m getting at?

From those paragraphs, you’ll come to understand that the usage of the word “entirely” is not “entirely the same" every time. Bits and pieces pull and push in various directions. Some people, who heard me say any of those statements above, may probably take it as a whole. They’ll see it as one complete idea and take it as “entirely the same” all throughout. Other folks may notice the differences, no matter how small and (somehow) insignificant it may seem to be for a number of people.

What I’m trying to say is that as a person, as an author and whatever role or title I may have, unity may be just a notion, a feeling or an action. Unity has different meanings for others. What’s entirely the same for me - when I look at myself - may not seem as such to you.

I hope you're catching my drift.

I can tell you who I am as an author, but will you (really) be listening and seeing it as the exact image of what I’m trying to let you see? Ponder on this more if you must.

These are today’s musings. I’ll see you next post. :-)

1 comment:

Sue Starlight said...

It's an intriguing and elusive idea, Sittie.

Perhaps we each encompass a totality of multi-verses which we can experience only one complete universe at a time. And within each universe, we might compartmentalize or transform different aspects of ourselves as we feel a need to, but each universe is a totality in itself within the grander unknowable unity of the possibly infinite muli-verses.

Add to each author's entirety the complete world of each story they write, and levels of "totality" become limitless. They may not seem united, but don't they exist in the single present of the author's life?

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The Musings of a Hopeful Pecunious Wordsmith by SittieCates is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.