Lived Experience, part 2.

The previous post explored an aspect of phenomenological research which explores lived experience. This post looks at Writing in the Dark: Phenomenological Studies in Interpretive Inquiry edited by Max van Manen, 14 case studies of this kind of research, with introduction, conclusion and commentary by MvM. We focus here on his concluding chapter (16, pp.237-252), called Writing in the Dark. It is, true to form, a phenomenological study of the lived experience of writing.

a) addressive and allusive writing.
We are talking here about writing which is not superficial and contentless but is intended to have meaning. This could apply to a novel, or to autobiography, diary, blog. It is addressive when it addresses or speaks personally to the reader. It is the intention of the writer to speak to readers (in the phenomenology of experience of reading, the same point is approached from the opposite direction). The text is allusive when it causes the reader to compare what is being read with their own experiences; the text alludes to the readers own life.

b) being self readers.
There is a danger of superficial and sentimental writing and reading. Once we start to focus on this deeper experiential level, we should go back to our own writings (and for that matter oral memories) "where meanings resonate and reverberate with reflective being" (p.238).

c) what is real?
Gazing into the dark is MvM's description of trying to find the ineffable 'real'. He uses mythology to emphasise that naming the intangible destroys it, because the words then become a substitute for the reality. The name becomes a stereotype, a typical definition rather than a dynamic (ever changing) description of reality. This is the intimate connection between the real and the interpreted.

d) 'seeing' and insight.
Reflective writing in the phenomenological mode can be a struggle, as different points of view are tossed around and worries about intention and meaning are wrestled with. The writer, says MvM, "may find an updraft and suddenly soar" (p.246), "really 'seeing' something". Such moments of insight generate the desire to 'see' more. Conversation shares interior knowing, but writing is scriptural, producing authoritative text (that is, text which is corrected, manipulated, artificial, and to some extent ambiguous). Reflective writing may more resemble conversation than corrected polished product, more hand-written text than ever editable word processed text. We may need to get back to quickly composed and unedited writing, rather like in this blog.

e) Darkness
Behind writing ( and reading) is a domain of total absorption. We read a book and get pulled into it. We write, and create a new state of being, a new environment, a new family of characters. We are delving in the unknown, in darkness. We, writers and readers, are open to what comes, receptive, but passive. We experience this new world through the minds of the characters within it, whether these are fictional or images from our past. The state of mind opened up is a form of wonder, an experience unformed by our mind, and uncontrolled by it. It is an experience we get absorbed by, and becomes part of us.

Summing up
Writing is a process that opens up a new world within us, through which we can reappraise who we are and what we are about. Reflective writing is therefore hard to do, as it makes us vulnerable; but having started it, it may be hard to stop. It is a private affair, but being able to share it with one or more empathetic yet critical others sharpens the process. Responding to reading, whether of fiction or critical studies, in a personal way can elicit new ideas and streams of thought. There is no perfect answer or solution; it is a process or journey rather than a destination.