Essays
On the Return to Writing (for other eyes);
uncertain spirals and digressions
“The dedicated life is the artist’s life, whether or not he ever stands before a canvas.”
— Annie Dillard
“It is precisely those artists and writers who are most inclined to think of their art
as the manifestation of their personality who are in fact the most in bondage to public taste.”
— Simone Weil
uncertain spirals and digressions
“The dedicated life is the artist’s life, whether or not he ever stands before a canvas.”
— Annie Dillard
“It is precisely those artists and writers who are most inclined to think of their art
as the manifestation of their personality who are in fact the most in bondage to public taste.”
— Simone Weil
Prior to a permanent move to Japan almost twenty years ago, work involved writing regularly for the arts and culture sector in English-speaking parts of the world. At a conference, the upcoming relocation had been mentioned to the artistic director of a particular theater who said, “That should open your eyes.” It did — and in direct proportion, it shut the literary mouth. Suddenly adrift in a sea of Barthesian mythologies, there seemed nothing of value to say, nor could any opening toward the pleasure of the text be found.
The essay as literary form though, with its long list of essayists that pegs 1580 as a turning point in referencing work by luminaries both before (e.g. authored miscellany — Attic Nights — by Aulus Gellius b.125 AD) and since, cast the first light on the path forward. In actual practice, writing hadn’t stopped — far from it. Pages and hours and previously unknown degrees of cramped hand ensued as container after glass container of ink flowed from Lamy nib onto Leuchtterm paper. The words of private musings and intimate struggles are still treasured but stowed away; streams of shamelessly uninhibited consciousness that took form during various phases marked mostly by a sense of futility in the face of any and all attempted communication are not to be shared. Living in a culture that values formalism and consensus above all, one that exudes distaste for and animosity towards any form of individuality with a supercilious and imperious yet dour, obtuse, and morose petulance and in which, more than ever, the nail that sticks out is to be hammered down had coated everything in a slipperiness that prevented any creative friction, which had previously been customary, from gaining traction.
Recently, however, the same conditions invigorate. The sense of constraint is experienced as a charging force - a dynamic that concentrates energy and generates resources to be directed according to one’s will. In allowing this present piece’s edges to be rough, a sense of space that had eluded in years past is rebestowed. That 1580 landmark work — justifiably or not — grants license to range freely with a certain sense of abandon, whilst the reproachful musings of Adorno keep one cautiously encouraged all the while distinctly aware of the limits to one’s experience and talent.
There is an allure in sensibility as structure and one enters writing again with a highly subjective sense of that inner glow from the act of composing words as if in a kind of idealised painter’s atelier on Paris’ Left Bank a century or more ago and any sip of café au lait on the 20th floor of an Ikebukuro tower where one works now becomes a trip to Les Deux Magots for a brief respite. Just as the purchase of a beret this winter is in fact a true prospect - they seem to be making a return these days on the streets of Tokyo - new cafés for writing also await, new photos are to be taken; there is a renewed dedication to metier. As with so many admired writers, a self-imposed allergy to polemics and pedantry, not due to any self-righteous freedom from such tendencies but out of a greater dislike of noticing them in oneself than observing them in others, insists rather upon a commitment to the simple and occasionally painstaking act of observation and rendering. One proceeds with trepidation knowing that the inner glow easily yields to a deeper aversion to self-indulgence.
The naive image of essay as canvas — one that was formed before reading the lines of Annie Dillard above — the writer as painter nonetheless takes hold and is not easily shaken. A page covered in words appears as a visual work in oil paint or pastel. A photograph. It is an ideal, and it is idealistic, but it is a mythology that one, hopefully not too vainly, hopes will keep the eyes open and the mouth not so easily shut. But the essay embraces — is based on — uncertainty.
Notwithstanding a great respect for all mythologists and semioticians and linguisticians, and aware of the fact that syntactical satisfaction can easily lead to sophistry, contentment is now found in stringing words together for others to read — and in the willingness to accept dismissal and well-aimed criticism. Twenty years of self-censure has taught the valuable lesson of knowing equally: oneself, the limitations of self-expression, and the appreciation of craft. The craft of investigating, scrutinising the world and existence, forging an object that can be held up to different kinds of light and reveal itself through its shadows and varied topographies and interiors is now a calling. ‘Any topic is equally fertile for me. A fly will serve my purpose.’ said the master Montaigne — for the pleasure of the text lies in securing the observation, the decisive moment, the wonder of perception and cognition, the undefinable relationship between sound and silence, the infinitude of flowing energy, the reality of cycle and season.
Dissatisfaction, for example with the dislocated labels culled from other languages by some, drives a need to hint at content behind snippets of veiled cultures. A handful of terms suggest themselves but will not be mentioned, those markers bandied about in the hopes of? Inducing others to bow down in respect of some mercurial wisdom, restraint, enlightenment, a harmonious balance of imperfection? Longing for simplicity and the sensuous? The eroticism of Nature?
Preference: essaying through observation, rendering through a discipline of craft. Strict denial of the first person pronoun. Aspirations towards, intentions and acceptance of personal mythologies. Etymologies and synchronic departures. Diachronic time travel.
But above all, purpose.
Spiralling digressions exceed mere tolerance; they are to be demanded. Coherence slyly nods its head to the poetic; the essay in its form of hyper-resilience acquiesces. Returns of authenticity satisfy deeply. Change, growth, edification — these nourish, as does unease.
The essay as canvas: the cloth is stretched, primed. Initial lines are inscribed, outlines emerge and colors are blocked. In the realm of the essay, time is different — not the explosive instant of the Japanese calligrapher - the essayist-artist may step back, incubate, touch and retouch. The canvas is free to sit on the easel and allow Time to guide process — time itself as the artist and the craftsman the perennial apprentice. Layers, unthinkable to the Japanese master of brush, become the essence of craft, its pleasure — and the essay allows for this. As Lydia Davis has said as well as can be said, “..be very patient, even patient with chaos… it’s not neat. You don’t start something and finish it and there you go. And start another thing and finish it.”
The essay is not aiming for the masterpiece or the epic. It might strive for a lightness of touch — an ultimate virtuosity unto itself — but it never groans under the weight of a heavy burden no matter how much pleasure one takes in hating. Poise, not pose. Presence, not pretence.
Purpose.
jd hixson (November 6, 2025)
Next: On Starvation (thoughts on Simone Weil)