WHAT IS IT THAT ‘WRITER’ IS? I use that deliberate set and order of words to reflect the phenomenological stance, as applied to thinking. Or, initially, to put it more accurately: what is it that this writer is? This writer, in this instance, is me (as opposed to the arbitrary and indefinite article that is a writer). Phenomenologically speaking, how is this writer experienced? How is the essence of this writer experienced (as opposed to ‘perceived’)? From this thinking, simply put, what is the essence of this writer and, possibly therefore, every writer?
Let’s examine this complicated thought process one point at a time. What is it that this writer is? One might think this something of a self-explanatory question to answer: this writer is someone who puts words on a page. I must go deeper though. A writer is someone who actually writes, but this writer, me, amounts to more than just ‘a person who writes’. This writer is a conduit (clichéd though this may sound), a vessel, a reservoir. These are all analogies and, as such, aren’t good enough. Go deeper.
How is this writer, this essence, experienced? This is not a question about what this writer thinks or perceives himself to be; this is a question about what this writer actually is. What is at the core of it? Analogies are too loose for this question. I can only dig deeper with further questions. What is it that, if removed, would make this writer a non-writer? Is the essence the ability to think, the willingness to think, the open-mindedness to new ideas, the ability to capture ideas? This is all too vague. Go deeper.
What is the essence of this writer, which is also the essence of every writer? That is, is there a core ‘something’ common to all writers? If it were possible to remove and place that ‘something’ on a table and experience it as an object of the world, every one of those removed objects would be experienced, by the observer, as the same as the next. There would be a table full of essences. The essence is the essential ‘being’ of the writer: a writer, this writer, every writer. What is it that that essence is?
When we know what that essence is, when we’re able to stand away and experience that essence as an ‘object’, taking the phenomenological stance, is it only then that we can truly call ourselves ‘writer’? I’m not saying that we should understand phenomenology to understand what being a writer is; I am saying that, unless we examine what being a writer truly is, we can’t really call ourselves ‘writer’ at all.
– Dean Cody Cassady
