Lessons from an apprentice writer

29/08/2022 Nilson Lattari

My mother was responsible for my writing: she taught me my first words. The first memory that I had, in contact with words and letters, happened when I walked with her on a street and warned a grocery seller, who wrote an incorrect word on a paper to announce products. The second memory, when my mother put old newspaper leaves on the floor of the kitchen to keep it clean, and I sat on the floor and started reading the headlines.
The reader was born into this magic world of signs. Then, poems and prose materialised as woodworking of graphite, an art of pencil, paper, and letters, images came from the imagination.
Now, I understand that reading is beyond. The contact with words is not enough, and we need to throw ourselves into emotion.
Emotion came from information we read and elaborate on to argue in the future, as if we were building a knowledge chest. This baggage came from research and studies of writers and poets we chose to embrace hearts and minds, and, finally, we will have a single and uniform discourse to people. Or it can be an indoctrination or a simple way to give lazy people the words to argue with others. People who don’t want to learn the art of reading and interpretation, and don’t want to rebuild themselves and the world.
Interpretation is emotion. It is not a mechanical attitude because it embraces everything that we understand, imagine, and it is a way to enfold people; however, the lack of emotion is also contagious.
Reading and interpretation put our lives, our culture and our familiar memories against the world and its words.
The organization of words can change discourses and lives, believe me. Sometimes, the art of words is a way to influence people. If we read or listen to familiar discourses from relationships, from our friends, they are more comfortable. But if we read and try to understand others, maybe they will become our enemies. Reading is putting ourselves against our comfort places.
When I was a kid, I read the words sitting on the floor. Now, I understand them, but I’m ready to defeat my thoughts using my reading. Sometimes, warriors need to go back to their spas to look for friendly reading like religious men look for their holy books, and losers look for help, and self-help. Each one has their comfort zone.
But, the look that seeks words has to look for the silence and the noise from the streets.
In this confused world, our readings have to go further and overcome the limits of papers and the limits of posts on social media. Playing with words is amazing.
Then, if you want to understand the world, you have to check the friendly or unfriendly spaces. If you want to propose challenges in uncomfortable places, you will abandon the safe boat, but you will learn to swim.