Friday, May 20, 2022

Friday Writings #27: Watching and Witnessing

Hello, dear wordsmiths. How are you just now?

How are you coping with this time of war, plague, natural disasters, and the deep disturbance many people are cast into by all the stress? How are those around you managing? Horror and anxiety are natural reactions. We need, more than ever, to be kind to ourselves and each other.

 

 

I see that we at P&SU are encouraging each other, in our writings and comments, to keep our spirits up despite the terrible things we confront daily. That is certainly preferable to sinking into despair – which only makes everything worse, and is seldom useful.

However, I’ve recently been reminded of the need for at least some members of the human race to keep watch – to bear witness to what is happening, and to the ways in which these events affect people. And I realised that poets and storytellers are among those who bear witness. I’d go so far as to say it’s one of our functions.

Keeping watch also means watching over. Our writing is a way we can do that, too: documenting human experience, to both acknowledge it and learn from it, can be one way of caring for each other, both individually and as a race.

We can do it by commentary on specific times and events. Or we can even do it in writing personal stuff about our own experiences and reactions – because each of us is a part of humanity, and expresses what it is to be human. 

We speak as ourselves, each particular individual, and also as plural voices making up a huge collective.

And what do we need to record to make this a human witnessing? Not only the events and experiences, not only our thoughts about them – but above all, I think, our feelings. They can be the hardest things to describe. Sometimes all we seem capable of is a wordless cry. Nevertheless, we can and shall find the words – it’s what we do.

Do we think there will be people – or even other intelligent beings – who in the future will want and need the record of this witnessing? We can’t know. Things look dire, but so they have in past centuries and here we still are, we and the planet. Nothing’s impossible.

How can I be sure that my particular words, of all those being written, will last to reach others in that hypothetical future? I can’t. (I could well suppose it unlikely.)

I think we need to carry on as if, in case – which includes, of course, everything that might help bring about survival: survival with lessons learned, survival and development.

Anyway, regardless of our unknown future, we have the here and now. This matters too. Indeed it’s all that we, who are here now, actually have. Let’s not waste it. Let's raise our voices!

Your prompt for this week (if you would like one) is to bear witness to these times we are living in, and how it feels to be living in them. How does it affect you, and/or how do you observe it affecting others?

Or, you may share anything else you like, on any topic, prose or verse, old or new.

One entry per person, please; prose to be no more than 369 words (excluding title). 

Link, below, to your post, say hello (and more if you wish) here, and please encourage others by reading and commenting on their posts.

And, speaking of human kindness ...

Next week Magaly will invite you to write poetry or prose inspired by something heartening and unselfish a stranger did for you or for someone else.

  

Image of man holding sign by  Matt Collam on Unsplash.



25 comments:

  1. I really should attempt my prompts before I set them! I found this one unexpectedly difficult to address. (Perhaps that should not have been a surprise, given that it deals with the traumatic.) Now I'll go have a look at how the rest of you got on.

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    1. Since I had already planned to share something else, I decided to write an American sentence inspired by your prompt. I ended up writing 13 in my journal. I might share one or 3 in the future. They were uncomfortable to flesh out, left me... sad and angry at the world. I wonder if that's the reason why you, too, found your prompt difficult--the topic involves so much pain.

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    2. I agree ...a lot of pain and despair involved...but not a reason to avoid the topic....I think most of us are doing it tough in some way or another but we have each other and will carry on...I find a bit of a giggle breaks the tension

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    3. "we have each other and will carry on..."

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  2. I have been in absentia for some time due to a drastic change in my life. Health issues took me to the hospital three times since November, and I have moved into a senior independent living facility. When I consider the current depressing times I can only choose to introduce love and kindness in small ways to those around me.....but if everyone practiced the same what a different world we'd enjoy!!

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    1. Dearest Jim, is this you? I think it must be, as you were saying you were forced to post comments anonymously. Please remember to add your name in the text if Google will only let you post anonymously.
      But then, Jim hasn't been as absent as all that, so perhaps this is our beloved Robin (Old Egg) whom we have greatly missed.
      Whichever of these wonderful gentlemen you are – both of them committed to treating others with love and kindness – sorry to learn of your changed circumstances but very glad you are still able to hit the keyboard and communicate with us here.

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    2. This post was from the incomparable Bev who never fails to raise my hopes, lift my spirits! Her Blogger / Google thing is not working properly yet. I will attempt to tutor her via the telephone.

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    3. I react in great part to the emotion / reaction regarding what is happening world-wide to those of my 60-year old special needs son Carl. Just this morning as he prepared our breakfast .. he said in frustration "I just want things to be Normal again" .. meaning our reaction to the Pandemic .. to which I replied "Carl, in a way they are. We are learning to live with the Pandemic, taking precautions as necessary, not letting it rule our lives." For now it seemed to be enough. And off he walks, down to the Safeway supermarket where he will spend the next eight hours. Everyone loves Carl. He makes all of us better.

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    4. Thanks for letting us know about Bev...glad you are keeping in touch with her and helping her out with the dreaded computer. We are all needed here on Poetry Planet.

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    5. Yes, thanks for clearing that up, Helen, about the mysterious Anonymous being our darling Bev. We'll all be wishing her very well, for sure. And rall, you are right! Love your last remark.

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  3. I am pleased Carl is appreciated in his job and also that he has such a wonderful mother to share his life with. God bless you both. Keep safe and well

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  4. This was a fun write for me, my only issue was "To get the word out" about your favorite soap box topic. So many of you here and the other related hosts, you are doing wonderful.
    My google issue is similar to Bev's, my son gave me a laptop, I use Mrs. Jim's now for three years and post using my Galaxy 8 Android. My son linked all the computers to the one he gave me and told google about this. Doing that has ruined my blogging life, I can write and publish and comment on non-google blogs. On some google lets me publish comments using the "anonymous" label, this one does.
    Jim
    at
    http://jimmiehov6.blogspot.com/2022/05/speak-up-poem-for-friday-writings.html

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    1. Maybe Helen could get me released. If I destroy the unused email address it is linked to google will take away my blogs, my YouTube, and mess with my Yahoo email stuff. I will work on it though, some, myself.
      I don't allow "anonymous" on my own even, I don't recommend that one bit. On my other blog, where I was more tolerant and allowed them, someone 'robo-commented' in an oriental language. I have eliminated the most of those comments now but every so often another pops up.
      The other blog, Jim's Little Blog,
      http://jimmiehov.blogspot.com/
      I have others but seldom post on them. Once in a while ...
      ..

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    2. Sorry you're having problems too, Jim. But it seems Mister Linky still allows you to use your name, that's something. You should be able to go into your Google account and change the email there??? However, I would hesitate too if I thought it would lose me whole swags of my online presence.

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  5. Apologies all, that I've been missing some hours. We've just had an important election here. First I was glued to the TV watching the results until late last night (last night here DownUnder) then this morning I have been waxing jubilant all over social media at the change in Government: a victory for kindness, compassion and environmental responsibility, plus more respect for diversity and for both Indigenous citizens and women.

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    1. Congratulations and delighted on your electoral news... Let the US continue to have results that bend toward kindness and diversity!

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  6. Good day, Poets and Storytellers!
    I am also having problems with Blogger recently. It allows me to post but sometimes I have no idea whether the post goes through or not. Just now, I posted my link at this site and I waited but the link did not appear. Also lately, some of your comments ended up in my spam box.

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  7. Hey guys, it's past midnight here, I will be around to read later. :)

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  8. From the Vault today ... something sad.

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  9. Hi all ... so delicious to be back here ... it's been way too long..this was just a little Sunday whirl (haven't been doing those either) which speaks to the Friday prompt albeit at a slant.. I have much to say about our upside down tilted surreal world nowadays but perhaps best to leave it with this small wordle word inspired little poem...My absence perhaps speaks volumes about the impact that the goings on in the world today have had on me. Hugs and love, peace and the catharsis and power of penning to all.

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  10. HURRAH! For the first time in about a year and a half I'm seeing links! I hope it lasts.

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