A friend of mine, a recently retired professor of English
Literature, has been writing what he calls phantom essays. They are more or
less the type of essay you would find in scholarly journals.
He has published his share of books and articles on
Victorian poets. I found the books in the New York Public Library catalog.
He has chosen not to publish anymore. He sends his essays to
friends and colleagues who have expressed interest in receiving them. This
saves him the fuss and bother of going through the publishing process.
His reasoning is that few people would read or remember them
anyway.
In one essay he talks about mandalas, the enormous
intricately and beautiful, sand paintings Tibetan monks painstakingly create
and then destroy upon completion. The monks believe that nothing is permanent.
Each creation is a step to a higher state. They believe that the real beauty is
in the act of creating the art rather than preserving it.
Beauty is ephemeral. We appreciate art in the moment.
It is the process of production that is important. The
creating not the creation that is the their central issue. Think of the poem “Ithaca”
advising us to enjoy the voyage not the destination.
The act of writing is a journey. It leads you to places you
might not have otherwise explored. To write is to come alive with an idea, an
inspiration that you try to express in words. You transcend the ordinary. You
are taken out of yourself. You become a writer.
Someone once said that a writer is a person who writes.
There is real purpose in the professor’s phantom essay. It's
the act of writing itself that matters to him.
I do appreciate the monks’ courage in destroying their art.
But I think I will keep mine.
Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of
discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid
of them:
you’ll never find things like
that on your way
as long as you keep your
thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t
encounter them
unless you bring them along
inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in
front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer
mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing
for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician
trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber
and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you
can;
and may you visit many Egyptian
cities
to learn and go on learning from
their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re
destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at
all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you
reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained
on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you
rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous
journey.
Without her you wouldn't have
set out.
She has nothing left to give you
now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka
won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so
full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then
what these Ithakas mean.
C. P. Cavafy, "The City"
from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and
Philip Sherrard. Translation Copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip
Sherrard. Reproduced with permission of Princeton University Press.
Source: C.P. Cavafy: Collected
Poems (Princeton University Press, 1975)
