How Often Should We Write?
Writing, Blessing, and Intentionality
How much should we be writing down? To answer this, I’d like to offer a reading of a Talmudic debate (Pesachim 103b)
Ameimar, Mar Zutra, and Rav Ashi were sitting at a meal, and Rav Aḥa, son of Rava, stood over them to serve them. Ameimar recited a blessing over each and every cup of wine he drank. And Mar Zutra recited a blessing over the first cup he drank during the meal and over the last cup he drank, upon concluding Grace after Meals. Rav Ashi recited a blessing over the first cup and did not recite any further blessings over the subsequent cups he drank.
The question is whether one should make a blessing (on Seder night) on each cup of wine, just on the first cup, or on the first and the last cup. This debate maps onto much more than Passover custom.
Consider that at the heart of the debate is a question about how long we can “hold something in mind.” A blessing exists to create intentionality. Those who bless often acknowledge that they have a hard time keeping their minds focused. Those who bless infrequently either have good retention or else believe that the blessing itself is a kind of external hard drive that stores their intentionality for them. A blessing is like a sketch, a notebook we can revisit.
For Ameimar-types, we should be blessing all the time. It’s a kind of mania as the world is always new and surprising, there is no anchor, no stability. One could spend one’s life blessing and doing nothing else. There was a time in my life where I spent hours of my days writing.
For Rav Ashi-types, it’s the opposite. Blessing should be reserved for truly special moments, inceptions. Perhaps we should make one blessing when we emerge into the world and no other blessings—all subsequent moments are covered by our original declaration.
The moderate position of Mar Zutra says blessings exist to cordon off events—we bless to begin and end things, but don’t need to bless for the duration of the event. On this view, perhaps we should make a blessing as we leave the world—all life from cradle to grave being one long feast.
Related to writing, there are basically three ways to think about why we write (I’m sure there are more).
For one, writing is a way of life, a kind of constant interaction with one’s surroundings. It’s not so much mediation of life as it is digestion. Poets like John Koethe and Frank O’Hara exemplify this. The Beats exemplify it. Writing is at once casual and sacred. “First thought, best thought” maps onto Ameimar’s position: “Bless whenever you want to.”
For the other extreme, writing is reserved for moments of need, when one can no longer endure not writing. Not note-taking but the ability to wait for the muse is the true task of the writer, who abides in silence until writing takes over. Writing, like Rav Ashi’s blessing, is for moments of insight; it’s not “a practice” or an “end in itself.”
A compromise position is that writing is both exceptional and unexceptional, a way of processing life, yes; but also a way of selecting what in life is worth reflecting on and returning to. Perhaps the greatest challenge to the writer is not production, but discriminatory editing. Mar Zutra knows which glasses not to bless, and that, too, is a kind of creativity. The writer knows what not to put in the notebook, what moments not to sacrifice to writing, what lines to keep private. Werner Herzog says if you’re holding the camera when the baby is born, you’re doing something wrong. Not to bless, not to write, because one is simply immersed, is also a talent.
Should you be writing more? Less? By what considerations do you judge?
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