The phrase that defines the title can have several meanings. In this text, we will highlight 4 of those meanings, one of them is the one we exposed in Post READING-WRITING-DRAWING: VIRTUOUS CIRCLE. All individuals can create a force that upon repetition generates a virtuous circle of reading-writing-drawing that propels our unconscious to recover part of what has been stored or repressed by the consciousness and that it exposes it as graphic and mental images. That is to say, an effect is generated according to its material, spiritual or artistic essence, flowing through a “conduit” through which the different elements of knowledge and culture (*) are channeled. Through this “conduit” arrives, with a sense, the information to the human mind, and in the case, that concerns us: through reading, and once processed by the mind, flows out of it, through writing or other means, such as oral, images, pictures, drawings, etc. The information that arrives in our mind, through reading, is forged and remains pending and suspended in order to be used. What reading itself provides is an immense “arsenal” that can be used to generate any product, such as writing or drawing.
We said in that Post that these two activities, both reading and writing, are flows, and both are constituted by words and images. One of these flows has as its source of origin the mind of the individual, that is to say, it emerges from there, and the other flow has as its destination this same organ, that is to say, it converges to it.
(*)DEFINITION OF CULTURE: In order to clarify the concept of culture we will resort to what Paul Diel expresses: “Civilization is an intellectual formation; culture is a formation of the spirit. Civilization is the organization of the external world (social life); culture is the organization of the internal world (personal life). Civilization tends to satisfy multiple desires; culture tends to satisfy the essential desire. Diel, Paul, Psychoanalysis of divinity, F.C.E., Mexico, 1974, pp. 71-72.
The second meaning of the title was exposed in the same Post READING-WRITING-DRAWING: VIRTUOUS CIRCLE and we also ratified it in Post OTHER DEVICES TO READ AND WRITE, WHILE WE WALK; in both Posts, we explained that every good reader can become, sooner or later, a writer. For this point, it is enough to comment that the majority of great and staunch readers and recognized writers confirm it.
The 3rd meaning is the one that Borges has recurrently exposed in several of his essay-stories, arguing that writing is actually a re-writing of what we have read. This case is similar to the first; however, Borges stresses the tautological or repetitive character of books, warning that everything is already written in the literary world. It is a tautology because we write the same ideas of what we have read, changing formats, modes and styles, according to our own different perspective, although that is not our conscious intention.
And finally, the 4th meaning is related to the spoken word. We often find people who are eloquent; that is, they can express themselves in a persuasive and understandable way, and their audience is fully moved and interested. I believe that this eloquence comes, in addition to the speaker’s abilities, from his or her lively (lilting) manner and the emphasis he or she puts on his or her speech. As if each sonorous word he was reading aloud was being felt and tasted in his mouth. The “saying” of the eloquent speaker is a reading analogous to the rhythm of writing; it is as if he were writing it at the moment of reading-saying, carrying a cadence and a rhythm transmitted by the pen with which he writes.
I repeat: The emphasis that we transmit to our saying, is as if we were reading it at the rhythm that we write, giving precisely the emphasis to the words, as if we were writing them or giving life to that writing.
I don’t know if you, dear reader, have experienced the following: When we find a sentence or phrase that endorses and supports the writing we are doing, we want to quote it in it. When we start typing it, we enter a different dimension of understanding. As if the author of that locution was explaining it to us more clearly, and as far as I am concerned, I believe that this happens because when we write it we do it at a rhythm-cadence with which it has been thought and transmitted, and that is why it makes it more understandable. When we write it down, we are in exact harmony with the cadence and emphasis of the author, which gives us an understanding of what the writer wanted to transmit. Perhaps something like this happens with the eloquent speaker.
The better we assimilate the articulation and functioning of this reading-writing binomial, the better we will be able to advance in the joint development of these activities; which are intimately related, although we are not aware of it, since any of the 4 meanings we have outlined may be part of our personal inclinations.
No matter in which meaning we are immersed, we know that one leads to the other, but… let’s not forget to do it always walking.
Now then: why walk? From my own experience, when I walk and read, I enter in a deep dimension that places me in a space of absorption and in a lapse of time that stops. I compose myself in a state of abstraction that the reading begins to be in rhythm with my walk, with the cadence of my steps (Future posts EXPLORING OUR PERCUSSIVE MUSICAL WALKING; THE COMPÁS AND RHYTHM IN OUR WALKING). I just have to let myself be carried away by that compass that I achieve when I walk and read.
The same thing happens to me when I walk and write. The cadence of my steps brings me deep into my world of writing, and the theme I am developing in rhythmic consonance with my walking and my mind. This rhythmic beat absorbs me completely, creating a creative harmony and I lose track of space and time.
Surely there is a correlation between the number of steps and the words I read or write. I have not yet tried to quantify it, but I will do so in the future.
Let’s take a walk and enter that dimension by pacing our reading and writing -while walking- with our natural, very personal, special and unique rhythm and beat. Our steps are writing traces characteristic of our personality (Future Post PERSONALITY DEFINED BY THE WALKING RHYTHM). Let’s be walkers who read, ergo: writers who walk.