Naemah Thiam
@agardenofideas
Naemah Thiam
@agardenofideas
As Dorianne Laux wrote, "Good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's."
"You cannot make evervone think and feel as deeply as you do. This is your tragedy, because you understand them but they do not understand you. People can only understand us at the depths in which they have met themselves."
she did it again:
gaining power over my own narrative but also power over the collective narrative
writing to discover what i think (joan didion)
type of conversation i ‘m looking for: the state of thinking alongside someone else (opposed to the hyperawareness of the other’s presence, be immerged in the realm of idea and letting go of my physicality, crafting a new answer together, far from my limitations of not being able to think and discuss at the same time, sortir des banalités as a result)writing allows me to let go physicality and enter realm of ideas
many many things to add
so many thoughts from this conversation:
needing to go three steps deeper in order to go three steps forward, its not about the speed at which you can reach your objective because once you do then what. life has taught me that it looses its specialness, and it will feel amazing and you will be proud but then life isn’t drastically different afterwards, what’s really interesting is the journey to get there (it is most of the time in my life) the achievement’s greatness isn’t measured in the time that it took to get there but in the deepness of its transformation on you.
jay speaks about the fact that he isn’t the daily habit reader/learner, he needs to really immerse himself into a subject. He will dedicate a weekend every month to just reading as many books as he can, take a class, watch Ted-Exs etc etc and this is how he advances —→ this ties in with the idea of progress in seasons with a hyperfocus on one thing at a time and also letting go of the social media idea of the successful life or the right way to do things, but rathr honor what feels organic to you in the way to lead your life
it would have been a greater failure to come out on top because that meant she would have sacrificed the person that she cares about being (strengh not bring the one that could withstand the toxic environment/thick-skinned but the one that had the courage to stay true to themselves)
making art to share with your friends and family to let them understand your experience of life, it isn’t self-indulgent to write about your experiences. she made it for her family (her play) “make art for the people you love”
the hard thinh about being human is that we have to be all of ourselves “it’s yes and, not either or”