Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Pushin' dem Hands

Push Hands is fascinating. I found it especially interesting simply because I have experience in the titular tai chi exercise itself. I never in my life would have equated it to something like writing, but after reading this short essay, I can totally see where Jeffrey Skinner is coming from when he makes the analogy. A lot of writing is about anticipation, just like the game of push hands. Oftentimes we let what we are thinking about in our mind affect how or when or even if we are going to be writing. We may or may not convince ourselves that we are capable of something, or we think to much about what we are doing and, in turn, end up ruining a really great idea. The same goes for the tai chi exercise. A lot of the flow of the game comes from just feeling, and not thinking too much. If you push too hard or too little, you are done for. Your move, just like your writing has to come from the heart. You can’t get caught up so much in your mind. OF course what you think is essential to your writing, but I’d say really great writing is mostly power of the heart over power of the brain. If your heart isn’t in it, then why even bother?

1 comment:

  1. I agree that passion gives purpose to writing. Skinner certainly shared some great ideas in this piece.

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