BRUCE LEE, SPIRIT On WRITING :
THERE ARE NO LIMITS. THERE IS NO SPOON.
Many of you enjoyed my post on writing enough to ask me to come back. And to answer your question : yes, spirits watch movies.
I enjoyed the first MATRIX. The second not so much. The third not at all.
But I am here to talk writing not movies. I have read many of my friend Roland’s posts, watched the videos, and disagreed often.
Take what the esteemed Mr. King said : “ Writing cannot be taught.” He is wrong. Do not blame him. After all, he is but alive, boxed in the prison of his mortal mind.
But what a thing to say to struggling writers! Most of you are filled with self-doubt and uncertainty – as are all novices. And what do you hear?
Writing cannot be taught. Genius cannot be taught. And so is killed hope.
No, Mr. King, writing can be taught, genius can be awakened.
You wrinkle your face and mutter, “But genius is so rare.”
Ah, my friend, you, too, are wrong. Genius is as common as the dreams of dogs.
Have you not watched your pet, twitching and softly barking, as he is caught in the throes of dreams?
Every dream, every nightmare, reaches deep into the well of imagination and of magic. If common dogs can tap into that reservoir, surely you can as well?
To say that writing, that genius cannot be taught is to place limits on your mind.
If you begin by putting limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work, into your mind … into your entire being.
There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. But you will die fully alive!
A man must constantly exceed his level.
Ask a successful writer how he wrote his famous novel, and he will become uncomfortable, muttering about the unconscious and how writing cannot be taught.
Not so. He just does not know his own mind. How many do?
Do not listen to ignorance. Instead focus on your own mind and heart. Anything which blocks the path to self-awareness, prune from your life. Be it drink, food, or habit, if it blurs your sense of who you are, it must go.
Study the Masters of writing. Get a sense of their technique. But beware copying them. Though they play an important role in the early stage, the techniques should not be too mechanical, complex or restrictive.
If we cling blindly to them, we shall eventually become bound by their limitations. Remember, you are expressing the techniques and not doing the techniques.
Let the words flow through you in your own unique way of looking at life and at others.
Do not become the slave to your or anyone else’s expectations. In writing as in Jeet Kune-Do, one does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.
If you see a bulky sentence, strip it down to its essentials. If you do not, the reader will simply do it for you, skipping ahead – and perhaps missing the key phrase that was meant to add life to your novel.
In creating a statue, a sculptor doesn't keep adding marble to his subject. No, he keeps chiseling away at the inessentials until the truth of its being is revealed without obstructions.
Thus, contrary to other disciplines, being wise in Jeet Kune-Do and writing, doesn't mean adding more.
It means to minimize, in other words to hack away the unessential.
Like limits. Grow strong in writing, in your daily living. Drop the chains of what others say is possible from your mind.
There are NO limits. There is no spoon.
There is only the limitless horizon. Good journey, my friend. I will be watching.
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