Photo by Liga Kalnina on Scopio

In a very simplistic sense, structure can be considered as an organising principle (among many other things, of course). In the case of the Book of Disquiet, the organising principle is linked to the activities of assembly and curation (verbs) - in that specific case tasks that occurred decades after the author’s death, and that can never resolve into a definitive outcome, they can never be completed, and they can never be undertaken with anything like objectivity. The substance of the raw material - 25,000 loose fragments, a number of which are practically illegible and only a portion of which are dated - denies these three conditions and much besides.

There is something deeply comforting in this, in the contemplation of both the task and the ‘finished’ product of the task. Contemplating assembling the constituent parts of a similar work from scratch - writing the very fragments that could lead to such a challenge, over a lifetime or shorter period - feels liberating, inspiring and stimulating to the imagination.

What is an artistic work? Is it ever complete? Well, certainly it can be finished; however, I suspect it is never complete, even when ‘completed’ by the artist. Marguerite Duras said:

“I don’t know what a book is. No one knows. But we know when there is one”.

I have that on a sign pinned up in my bedroom. I note that she said, simply, ‘book’, rather than ‘written work’. The point is to make a book, not something as ill-defined or ephemeral as a ‘written work’, which could be argued as having existence independent of its form, assembly, binding, commitment to paper. No, this fight is about books. It is called the ‘Book of Disquiet’, after all - not ‘Ideas of Disquiet’, ‘Thoughts on Disquiet’, or even ‘Meditations on Disquiet’, as the consolidation of the fragments into a book is a precondition of its transformation into existence in the absence of any other relevant organising principle.

I have been published more than a hundred and fifty times, in Australian and foreign publications. Articles, reviews and essays ranging from 500 words to several thousand, nothing longer than that. Nevertheless, the publication itch is satisfied, it is thoroughly scratched.

My personal project, the nascent topic of this blog, is the writing of a book. Publication is not a condition of its existence or its success: it is nothing so fragile or contingent. It is tough, stubborn and resilient, impervious to both my frequent attentions and my equally frequent neglect. The work will exist as a book, or not exist, regardless of whether it is published, in or after my lifetime. As Duras has said - I, too, don’t know what the book is, but I will know when there is one.

There is not one yet.

Study XI for Richard J. Daley Centre Sculpture, Pablo Picasso, 1964

I think outlining is a completely pointless method of writing. Not really a method of writing at all, in fact, but a sham, a sideshow. Busy work people do instead of writing.

The preoccupation with narrative or literary structure is another red herring, in my humblest.

Written works certainly do have a structure that can be analysed, and they can be retrospectively outlined, but neither are any way to commence or embark on a work. These techniques are retrospective, not prospective. At least, they hold no interest for me. If they work for you, more power to you - but you probably won’t like anything I commit to the page, and I doubt I will like what you do either. That’s ok, we don’t really need each other, so all is well. Go in peace.

I have a working methodology that I apply when commencing all my commissioned written works. It goes like this:

“Start anywhere and just get on with it”

This maxim (precept?) suggests that the writing process starts anywhere, with emergence of smaller parts of the text itself (or as I have heard someone say about poetry, writing a poem starts not with an a-priori idea ‘about’ the poem or, even worse, about poetry in general, but with an actual fragment of poetry.)

This methodology is further expanded by my favourite quote of all time, in relation to getting things done creatively (or at all, for that matter):

”Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

Tennis player Arthur Ashe said that. It is profound, powerful stuff. Astonishing, really - essential and simple. I think it speaks so directly to me because I find in it an echo of the concept of _equanimity_ drawn from the mindfulness meditation practice that has loomed so large in my daily life in the last couple of years.

The concept of _equanimity_ is a foundation skill of mindfulness meditation, and it is one of radical openness - acceptance of exactly what is, right now, as exactly what needs to be, simply because it is what it already is - without intervention or need for alteration. Nothing to solve, nothing to fix.

We always commence meditating by engaging with where we are, right now:_Start where you are_. Accepting your current situation exactly as it is, along with the reality, shape and extent of your resources, is an astonishing and radical basis to approach any given task: _Use what you have_. Accepting the limitations of your ability, as it exists right now in the moment, as entirely good enough is both liberating and humble: _Do what you can_. The logical extension of this last with ‘…and no more’, is implied, and can be fully embraced in the spirit of equanimity.

I love all this, as it is the opposite of the need (and pressure) to ‘be an expert’, ‘be good’, or ‘be a professional’. Expertise and professionalism have to be attained through externalities, proven regularly (and repeatedly) and vigorously defended at all times.

This is entirely appropriate in situations where the beneficiaries of said expertise or professional skill are relying on the consistency and quality of the outcome of your activities, especially for their safety. For example, this occurs in medicine all the time, in engineering, and even in architecture - and there can be practical reasons that jealously-guarded professional boundaries are enshrined, by custom, culture and occasionally legislation.

Of course, there are some very bad reasons as well. Call me anti-establishment if you must (go right ahead) but I think the professions are atrophied, conservatively defended from positive change, and fundamentally protectionist. This is all done under the banner of ‘protection of the public’ and Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), but I’m not buying it. Protection of the bottom line is the more accurate reason.

When I am being an architectural person (the day job), I have to play this game to some extent. But when evening falls, and I retire to meditate, I really want to abandon all vestiges of this expertise and conferred authority. I do not want to be in the mindset of an expert twenty-four hours of the day. The very thought makes me anxious and tired. I long to be, need to be, a beginner and a novice, daily - and meditation is where I find the place to do this, to be this, every day.

I have fully immersed myself in the professionalism of architecture as a daily practice (well, more or less - legally I am still not formally registered as an architect, even though I am qualified and own half of an architecture practice.) However, when I write, I do not want to be a professional of any kind. I do not want to be an expert in any way. I want to just start anywhere, and get on with it, and see what happens. My best writing always proceeds this way.

I want to start where I am right now, use what I have, and do what I can. Absolutely nothing more.

I do not need what I write to be published (more than I have been to date, which is many times) in order to prove anything, to myself or to others; I do not need to know how to ‘make money from writing’ either (and incidentally, the purpose of the popular publishing platform Medium, which occasionally has some good stuff on it, seems to be very little more than an outlet for writers seeking to make money from writing by writing articles for other writers about how to make money from writing. It’s an echo chamber. I’m a member, but not really interested.)

And so to Fernando Pessoa. Pessoa published very little in his lifetime. But let me be clear: I do not (and have never) subscribed to the myth of the tragically misunderstood and starving artist - the ‘beautiful loser’ - but neither did Pessoa. He was too busy for that.

The ‘starving artist’ is similar to the myth of the ‘lone genius’, another toxic stereotype, one that is rampant in the architecture and design professions.

Pessoa embraced the craft of writing on its own terms, but perhaps more importantly, on his own terms - with no practical or sustained approach to seeking or securing the financial or psychic rewards of publication. If his trunk of 25,000 fragments hadn’t been discovered after his all-too-early death, Pessoa would have disappeared entirely from history, which in my estimation would not have put even a minor dent in his achievements, as they were for him and him alone.

We just wouldn’t know about it all; fortunately fate intervened, and we have his work to read and absorb.

This is inspiring.

Of course there was a lot more going on with the many personas (heteronyms) of Fernando Pessoa than the above, but it is a start. More to come.

Having begun this entry with a commentary on outlining and structure, I was going to talk more about structure in relation to the Book of Disquiet. But that is enough for tonight: we will get to that later.