My current slow-read is K. Setiya’s book Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way. While there are many aspects of this philosophical book that interest me and pertain to current or recent experiences in my life, something that gained my attention regarding writing is the author’s suggestion that the concept of failure as a loss is bound up with cultural narratives. If we imagine our lives as arcs with the aim of goals, journeys’ ends, attainment of heart’s desires, finding true love, and the like, Setiya argues, it is too easy to feel that we are failures, and to despair or grieve. Maybe we should not be so caught up in narratives, he suggests.

Hmm. As a poet who writes a good deal of what may be termed “lyrical narrative” work and as a human who loves a good story, I’m more drawn to theories of story-as-essential-to-humans; I’m thinking here of Daniel Dennett and Brian Boyd, about whom I’ve blogged in the past (I will place those links at the end of this post). Nonetheless, poetry is often writing about what is NOT a story; some of my favorite poems have no story per se to tell, yet they move me to reflection and/or to emotional resonance. Hence they feel deeply significant.

And if you have happened to click on the links to the right of this page that lead to my poetry online, or purchased and read my books (thank you, dear readers!), you are sure to find several pieces that are not even remotely narrative. As someone who has struggled with self esteem and ambition, and often felt myself a failure, Setiya’s philosophical undoing of the concept that a well-lived or meaningful life entails having “successes” comes as a relief. Whether one decides to accept his idea–I guess that’s up to you. It’s a book worth reading given how anxious contemporary American citizens seem to be and how powerless and despairing we often feel.

Colleagues have often asked why I don’t write fiction, and I respond that much as I love stories, I am no good with plots. It occurs to me that I cannot imagine writing a memoir, either. First, my life doesn’t strike me as being all that interesting, and second–I don’t think of my life in plot lines. It has been, instead, a series of experiences that mainly connect because my body and my ego-self are being carried more or less randomly through life on earth while I observe the world and participate in whatever moment I happen to find myself inhabiting. So it seems I need to locate a book Setiya mentions, Jane Alison’s Meander, Spiral, Explode. Whenever I get around to reading and reflecting on it, I’ll post here.

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Here are links to posts about art, storytelling, narrative urges, etc.

The narrative vein

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Art and “human intelligence”