Not previously published on Wayfarer’s Notes
I still haven’t given up on “the book of the blog”. When I do, this place can become “the blog of the book”, but don’t worry, it will be the same blog, going off in the same haphazard directions. In December last, I dashed off a Preface followed by a Preface Mark II”, both of which were enough to quell a reader’s interest stone dead from the first sentence on. Now I’ve had another go, but I’m not sure if it’s any better. You are invited to pass judgment, see below.
Over the last five years I’ve kept a journal, writing an entry roughly every four days. It hasn’t exactly been a private one, for it’s a blog, that strange word which some think ugly, formed from the syllables Web + log. There are on the Internet hundreds of millions of blogs, open to millions of readers. Some are like personal diaries. It is worth asking what drives the author to make the effort. I continue to ask myself this, and still get worthwhile answers. Gradually I’ve come to see blogging as a method of discovery. Without the discipline of written language, and of presenting something to my unseen audience, I wouldn’t know what I have to say. Precious experiences would hardly be noticed at the time, and soon forgotten afterwards; all for want of an album of literary snapshots.
This much—that it would be an adventure of discovery—I knew from the start, as my first ever post reveals. The second post, written a few days later, brought to consciousness something that seemed like an idle flight of fancy at the time. In asking “Do fish have souls?” I tried to record what it felt like to discover the astonishing beauty of a mackerel, even when dead. As I slit its belly to prepare it for grilling, I saw that its bone-structure and organs were not so different from my own; that in a sense we are one family.
I was—am—overwhelmed by the wonder of it all: its beauty, the mystery of existence, an inexpressible feeling within me, always yet never the same. I know that there are explanations: in the theory of evolution; in recent discoveries of DNA and how brains work; in the lore of various myths and religions. But it’s quite different to make a personal discovery. The sense of wonder is nothing like any explanation. Keeping a public journal, trying to find words to share this sense of wonder, perhaps sometimes succeeding, has helped uncover extraordinary dimensions within the commonplace round of daily life.
Words can’t really convey the richness of experience, but that doesn’t stop us trying. Sometimes the spirit behind the words can jump the gap of separateness and touch what’s common, however clumsy the communication.
I was going to call it The Soul of an Animal, with a picture of young bulls on the front. But now I wonder whether to call it Do Fish Have Souls?
a wayfarer’s notes 