Thursday 11 December 2008

I get incredibly tense at a certain stage of writing philosophy, usually near the beginning of composition, when I have a vague sense of what I want to say but am not sure how to say it or, when I start to find an expression for the idea, I am diverted into a different direction, which shows itself only under those conditions, and I see that this is really the way to go and the earlier thoughts have to be abandoned, even though they brought me to this place I needed to be all along. It's a tension within the body that goes with spasms of mental pain that don't allow you to sit still for more than a few moments, so that you have to pace around the room, and sometimes the pain seems so intense that one feels one must abandon the task and take up fishing or knitting, or anything ... and yet there is a process that is in place and you have no choice but to submit to it and endure... until you have the draft. God, what a fuss he makes.

2 comments:

David Byron said...

The book may now be pre-ordered on Amazon.co.Uk, but the title on the cover differs from the listing. No doubt you know.

Anonymous said...

You mean the Philosophers and God book? Yes a bit garbled but presumably just a marker. It makes me co-editor of the Indian Philosophical Quarterly, which may surprise my Indian friends. I have advisedthe publisher and no doubt they will get round to it. I wasn't referring to it when I talked about 'the draft', butmore generically. Hope you haven't caught flu