I really like to write. I’m comfortable writing about myself, my feelings, my inspirations, my goals, my, my, my…  I would love to be able to write fiction. A nice story. The kind of story I would like to read, a story I could get lost in.

I wasn’t feeling too good about this the other day. I the following note in one of my (seldom used) blank journals.

Write What You Know
10″x6.5″ Watercolor on Craft Notebook Page

I’ve been thinking about this phrase: Write what you know. If this is true, it is not surprising that all we know about Socrates is through the writing of Plato. Socrates, after all, was famous for saying he didn’t know anything.

Let’s think about this. Does ‘write what you know’ really mean, write what you know now? Could it mean, ‘write what you once knew’? If the latter is true, I’m golden. I used to know a lot. Nowadays I’m stuck in the no man’s land of being-over-50-in-Silicon-Valley. All I know now is… Never mind, I digress.

The visual arts:

I’ve found a lot of comfort in being able to create in the realm of the visual arts. I’ve studied the work and writing of other visual artists, each of whom brought their own stories and experiences to their art. I don’t look for knowledge of technique or subject matter per se, but rather I look for clues as to how these artists approach the problem of making visible (a topic Paul Klee wrote about), what is inside them.

I believe there can be a link between between unconscious knowledge (what a person doesn’t know s/he knows) and the urge to express it.

In thinking about writing and painting, I came up with the following aphorism:

“Write what you know, paint what you don’t know.”

Oh to be a painter and a writer!