On Writing Essays For Your Health—An Analysis (6 September 2024) by Lawrence Davidson
Part I — Horror Struck
We are all caught up in what I call “natural localism,” or the primacy of conditions closest to us in time and space—family issues, issues of health, issues of work, and the ups and downs of everyday life. In addition, some of us import other aspects of the world into our “naturally local” environment. This happens when there is a strong family, friendship, or other connection (i.e. ethnic identifications with foreign “homelands”). “Natural localisms” create gravitational centers for our lives, but under extreme circumstances, they can also become very much of a negative preoccupation. It is at that point that one must find a way to channel the concerns in a sanity-preserving way.
For me, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has long been such a preoccupation. As an intellectual, raised in a liberal secular Jewish home, I have long been dedicated to progressive issues such as civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War. As an academic, I taught Middle East history and the evolution of U.S. foreign relations to the region. Thus, the conflict involving Jewish Israelis and Palestinians has been essentially imported into my local environment. As anyone familiar with the ongoing nature of the struggle can guess, the emotions engendered have been disturbing. The worst of this, of course, has been borne by the Palestinians, now faced with an Israeli-spawned holocaust. For the growing number of Jewish supporters of the Palestinian cause the situation has also been traumatic. The erosive effect on Jewish ethics and the parallel slide into a primitive barbarism of the Jewish Zionist collective leaves the progressive Jewish observer horror-struck. How then, does one cope?
Part II — How to Cope?
There is an actual psychological strategy called “writing therapy.” The theory is that a lot of negative emotion that might otherwise be bottled up can be released by writing about what ails you. It supposedly helps lower stress and helps you to maintain an even temper. There are some relatively successful results following this approach. One example which I found quite moving is the experience of Ntozake Shange, a poet and actress who created the performance, “For colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf” in 1976. Her 6 September 2023 short essay, “Dark Rooms” published in the Paris Review explains how writing, along with psychoanalysis, contributed to her sanity—allowing “a much healthier management of violent proclivities.”
I too have had a long relationship with various forms of therapy. However, I can’t say I initially saw my own writing as a survival technique. That awareness has come only recently. So, I sort of fell into the tactic sideways. Here is how that happened:
I taught at a mid-size state university in Pennsylvania for 27 years. In 2011, I gave notice of my intention to retire from college teaching two years hence, in 2013. I used those two years to figure out how to successfully make the transition. I figured the way to do this is to find that aspect of your job that you particularly like and see how you can carry over that activity into retirement. Of course, for this approach to work there has to be something likable in the job. I was lucky in this regard.
Academic work consists of two basic activities: teaching and research/writing. I have always enjoyed teaching and considered upon retirement applying for a part time adjunct position at one of the private colleges in my area. Somehow that never happened and, rather quickly, I discovered I did not miss teaching. So the research and writing was the remaining option. This too I had enjoyed and, when it came to publishing, I had been reasonably successful.
It was around 2010, before retirement but with the Palestinian-Israeli struggle as a constant background, that it occurred to me that “guide books” (real examples of critical thinking about essential issues) are not to be found in the popular press or media. They are, if you will, specialty items which often have to be hunted for and maybe subscribed to. I decided that I would just put out my version of such ideas, gratis. So, I began sending occasional brief essays (rarely more than 2000 words) to a list-serve. This effort was well received.
The topics varied, though they tended to cluster within certain categories: US domestic politics and culture (such as the double standards used by the mass media); the role of the intellectual; international law and human rights; and, of course, Israel and the flawed nature of Zionist ideology. I wrote so often on all of this that by 2018 I had accumulated enough worthy essays for an anthology—which was published in 2019 under the title Essays Reflecting the Art of Political and Social Analysis, published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Part III — Anger Management?
The problem with youthful idealism is that, sooner or later, one is bound to be confronted by harsh reality. Again, this raises the coping question. The spectacular success of innumerable religions attests to the popularity of this particular quest. It may be that religion does not provide a definitive answer, but only the comforting glue that holds together communities of faith-based romantics. Alas, how about those who have no faith in the invisible? After all, looked at with open eyes, god either does not exist, has no interest in humankind, or is cruelly hostile.
What happens when you come to see human beings as simply animals who intellectually know how to be human (that is maintain humane communities) but, as Freud suggests in Civilization and its Discontents, need to learn how to sublimate enough of the specie’s violent proclivities so as not to destroy the whole collective?
Public “training” along this line is incredibly hit and miss. What is instilled in most children is the self-discipline to follow the directions of, at first, parents or family elders and then later, superiors in a hierarchical system. In addition, one is supposed to follow the law. To the extent that this works out, you get a modicum of stability. The less convinced, while still (mostly) law abiding, need further coping assistance.
So many go looking for the more creative of Freud’s avenues of sublimation. This breaks down according to temperament, but some of us find our avenue in writing (or, if you wish, “writing therapy”). It works to a certain degree—usually enough to keep one from fatal high blood pressure, manic depression, and homicidal outbursts.
Part IV — Conclusion
Finding a societal problem that sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb is certainly not difficult. I usually write two blogs a month and there is enough criminal idiocy in the world to keep this pace up for the rest of my scribbling life. Which implies that such essays actually change very little about the way the world works. However, in my case, they are first and foremost for myself and a small group who finds them insightful. (This drive to express oneself is demonstrated in the case of my wife who persists in firing off op-eds to the NYT and other papers despite a long slate of rejections.)
Given who we are genetically and the formative influences of environmental experiences—some running back to before we were even born, the prospect of a truly peaceful and just world is probably an unattainable ideal. That doesn’t mean we should stop striving for this goal, because without the effort—the pressure to keep the worst in check—things go from bad to outright ruin very, very quickly. That is what has happened in Palestine-Israel. So the collective of people and groups protesting in the streets, suing in the courts, and repeatedly saying, in words and images, that justice, fairness, human rights and international law are of the utmost importance, are necessary to societal health. Such efforts are also good for the mental health of the activist. That is why writing my kind of essays helps keep me sane.
