Dear T2 writers,
“I hope this letter catches up with you
And finds you well”
It’s two lines from one of my fav country songs ... Only, the next one is “It’s been dry but they’re calling for rain” doesn’t seem right for London this time of the year, so we can skip it :)
...
T2 comes to me at a perfect time.
First, the idea of building a community by appreciating both writers and readers is just so appealing and promising. It’s decentralization to the upmost, I think, and because of that I believe we each will be able to see both our contribution and our rewards in the close-knit community T2 hopefully will be.
Second, I really hope I can stick with writing and reading books as a career. I really do.
Hence, please allow me to use this very first post to establish our friendship.
As Seneca wrote:
“There is great pleasure to be had not only from the practice of an old and established friendship but also from the initiation and acquisition of a new one. The difference between making a friend and having made one is the same as between sowing and reaping. The philosopher Attalus used to say that it is more pleasant to make a friend than to have a friend, “just as it is more pleasurable for an artist to paint a picture than to have painted one”
Now, you might say that making new friends is not the thing you need to do, as you are very happy with your own circle. Indeed, it’s actually the way people live in the past. I remember reading somewhere that:
There was a Greek philosopher. One day the king of the
neighbouring country sent him a letter, inviting him to come to take a great
position in his kingdom. The philosopher didn't have to think twice. He refused the invitation with a reply to the king along the line: “Here I have enough for myself and my
friends, so I need no more and I wouldn’t leave them for any reason”.
It’s quite a story, isn’t it?
But, in our modern world of high mobility, things have changed. It’s hard to find someone who’s still with their friends from childhood, live together and share things together (remember: the philosopher wrote: here I have enough for myself and my friends). In short, it’s safe to say that this Epicurean-style community doesn’t exist anymore.
And if you’ve ever moved to live somewhere else in your life for a long period, you know that feeling of longing for your friends, don’t you?
I guess it’s somewhat similar to writers. As Ernest Hemingway wrote:
"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day."
So, due to the fact that we’re embarking on the same boat, I hope we can be friends.
I hope we can be with each other through the moments when
- we doubt our ability to put words together to create something with meaning,
- we can’t calm our mind from some thoughts/emotions that the only way we can handle it is to write
and, hopefully, when we find ourselves in our writing, in the act that we love.
Just like a quote I love from “Mary and Max”, a movie about a very special friendship:
“God gives us our relatives, thank God we can choose our friends”
A Dreamer