The world as a distraction

I had always had a particular image of the writer: it's of somebody who is compelled to tell a story to the world because she feels it's a story that has to be told for a variety of reasons.

In other words, I had thought of the writer as somebody who intrudes madly into the world and makes a (meaningful and moving) noise in it.

A figure that had embodied the ideal writer in my mind was that of the Ancient Mariner--the storyteller in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

The unnamed mariner is a disheveled man with a time-worn face; the carcass of a dead albatross hangs round his neck. He was afloat, in the wilderness and the first port of civilization he alights upon, upon his re-entry into society proper, is a marriage party.

He isn't invited but he is so in need of society or the world that he barges into the party.

The mariner feels compelled to tell the story of his experience to his audience, to any audience that would care to listen. His sole objective is to tell and to symbolically disburden himself of the albatross around his neck.

From this, I had understood the storyteller as an intruder in this world; people had to be wary of such creatures for they would mesmerize the listener and momentarily carry him away from his duties toward the world.

In other words, the storyteller had stayed in my mind as a distractor who needs to engage with the world for his story to anchor itself.

The more recent image of the writer is of somebody who needs to run away from the world or be momentarily (and severely) disengaged from it to focus on the writing. 

The world for such writers could be a distraction that barges into their mental worlds, not to enrich, but to deplete.

Take for instance the daily matutinal routine that writer Roxana Robinson has created for herself, just so she can keep the world out of her way during those precious early-morning hours she dedicates to her writing. 

No sooner than she wakes up Robinson feels the world is encroaching on her and the noise of the day, she fears, will dissipate the words that have accrued in her mind during the night. "The night" she says, has spun a "fine membrane, like the film inside an eggshell."

An intersection with the world could just break the shell that's "fragile" and can be "easily pierced."

So, like a vestal virgin, Robinson tries to seal herself off from the world by adopting a daily matutinal routine of abnegation:

In the morning, I don’t talk to anyone, nor do I think about certain things.
I try to stay within certain confines. I imagine this as a narrow, shadowy corridor with dim bare walls. I’m moving down this corridor, getting to the place where I can write.
I brush my teeth, get dressed, make the bed. I avoid conversation, as my husband knows. 

Any dealing with the world is strictly utilitarian: The coffee is had just for the "kick" not for the enjoyment, and the granola cereal, tasting like "horse feed" is gulped down mirthlessly because it "validates" the coffee.

Without the coffee and the breaking of the fast the writing may not come.

There is an anxious avoidance of all other worldly emblems:

I don’t read the paper or listen to the news. One glance at the headlines, the apprehension of the dire straits of the world, and it would all be over. The membrane will be pierced; it will shrivel and turn to damp shreds. I will find myself thrust into the outside world, my opinions required on unfaithful politicians and the precarious Middle East and the threat of global warming: I should really take action. The voices of the outside world are urgent and demanding.

The writer thinks that the inner voice--wrapped up in that private gossamer "membrane" of hers--will disperse were she to listen to the voice of the world.

Then there is the world's arch miscreant--the Internet--to contend with. But the "endless electronic niggling" of the Internet is easily blocked off by yanking the cable from the laptop.

Finally, with the distracting world kept at bay, the writer settles down, trying to get caught up

[...] By something larger than myself, held in the light by some celestial movement. For a brief charged time I may be irradiated, able to cast a shadow version of something I only imagine. The shadow will never be the bright true self that I know exists, but it will be as precise as I can make it, as real, as sharp, as beautiful. I will cast this shadow into the air, where it may never be seen, or where it may be seen at a great distance, and only by one person, someone I will never know. The point is to cast the shadow out into the air.

A beautiful accounting of the writerly rigor, but the disengagement with the world and the casting away of it as a mere rudiment of distraction, is cruel.