“[T]he project seemed to hold out, more promisingly than anything I’d embarked on before, a way of bringing forth the few distinct realities I felt to be present inside myself, which is all any writer really has to offer.”
—James Lasdun, from “Helen” [The Paris Review, Issue 244/Summer 2023, p. 97], emphasis mine.
Neuroscientists talk about the flow state—what happens when you’re so absorbed in your work (or anything else) that you forget yourself, blur boundaries. I think of that as the bringing forth state, in which, as Karen says above, you move beyond yourself to achieve insight or connection.
Me, too! I guess it’s the “bringing forth” that creates the possibility of connection.
But I want a connection that goes beyond myself.