Through a glass darkly

It doesn’t matter whether you come from a psychological background or a literary background or whether you just observe people or watch yourself – you know that what we see is not what is there.  We think we know the other person, the one we used to love, for example, the one who drove us to ecstasy, the one who said they would always love us, you know, that one…. or we think we know ourselves, how strong we are, how ethical we are, until life suddenly tests us, or worse, slowly tempts us….. or we think we see how things works, how politics or organizations or people work, until they don’t.

That’s the point of writing, you know, to talk about the difference between what we see and what is really there.  We don’t write to “find the truth” – you can’t find the truth – all we can do is tinker with it, turn how we perceive things over and over in our hands like some crystal ball that never tells us anything.  We see the world through a glass darkly.  Forget writing about the truth.  Describe the glass.  The glass that is darkened and distorted by sexual desire, greed, revenge, emptiness, and most of all, by love.  If you don’t know how to start writing, start by describing the glass that we can’t see through.