Writing about nothing
February 15, 2003 | 12:00am
You know, I really like your column," one of my students said, "you don’t write about anything at all." Then she blushed pink, got flustered and turned red before she turned purple with embarrassment. "Oh, I’m sorry, that’s not the way I meant it at all. Let me try again," she said but would flush and laugh again before she could complete another sentence.
"Let me help you out," I volunteered. I am her teacher after all. "What you really want to say is you like my column because I write about ordinary things."
"Yes, that’s exactly it. No political opinions, nothing ponderous or heavy, just the stuff of everyday life. I enjoy that, can relate to it," she said.
And for a few weeks, ordinary life was pain-ridden. Housebound, I had nothing to write about except rheumatoid arthritis and an e-mailed suggestion from a stranger that brought quick relief. I wrote about Kinotakara, mindlessly presented myself as an information source because I hadn’t asked Chichi Magno for permission to print her contact numbers. I thought I should rightfully serve as a buffer between the two of my five readers who suffer backache and Chichi. I thought it would be manageable. Was I in for a big surprise!
As of Tuesday, I have received almost 200 responses. Computer-phobic older people asked children, nieces and nephews to e-mail. Where do we get in touch with Chichi? How do we get this product? People who had computers at home e-mailed on Saturday and Sunday. On Monday, overwhelming e-mail from people who had access to computers at work, that began to taper off on Tuesday. Some went into excruciating detail describing their pain or disease. Suddenly, I was glued to the computer answering queries. Suddenly, I was worried. What if the plasters don’t work on them as they did on me? Why are they talking to me like I’m a doctor? This seems like such tremendous responsibility. I’m just a columnist who writes about nothing, just an arthritic person who found relief in this strange new product.
This overwhelming reaction told me many things. One, I have more than five readers. If this is a dipstick, then I have more than 200 and if it is true that people who respond make up three percent of your total audience, then my column about nothing at all is widely read. Now, I have to take it more seriously.
Two, many people out there suffer from aches and pains and they will try anything to find relief. That they should believe a columnist should give their doctors sleepless nights. It means they’re not finding relief in what their doctors prescribe. It means traditional medicine is losing ground to alternative, at least in the mind where it all begins.
Three, pain more profoundly affects life than pleasure. When I write about pleasure, I don’t get this kind of response. I think this says that we – and I pointedly include myself – don’t know where to go to find comfort. I comfort myself writing about it and suddenly we’re a special-interest group. Arthritics of the world, unite! We may become a political force! We could sell our votes and raise money for Kinotakara! Just joking, of course.
So here I am virtually shackled to my computer disseminating information, all the time worrying – what if it doesn’t work on them the way it worked on me? Are they going to sue me for malpractice? But I’m not a doctor and this isn’t to be taken internally so I can’t possibly get into trouble over writing about something that really brought me relief. In an unexpected way, this is public service – the personal essayist’s brand of public service. It teeters dangerously on the brink of an endorsement, which raises an ethical question: Should columnists endorse products? I think personal essayists can ethically if it is truly based on personal experience. I don’t think I could have written this in an unbranded way. It would not have helped. I don’t even know the generic name of this product though someone did write in to say you can get them at Chinese drugstores, but she didn’t say what they were called.
Five years ago, on a visit to San Francisco, I noticed a change in the character of new newspaper columns. There were more columns on ordinary life but they were written from very specific columnist profiles. There were two I particularly enjoyed. One was a househusband profile, a journal of discovery of household chores from the point of view of someone who had never done them before. The other profile was that of a handicapped man who was wheelchair-bound. While I was there, one of the female editors of the paper resigned to move to another publication and so the paper announced that the column of the man in the wheelchair would end. She, the resigning female editor, had written it all along from her imagination. A furor ensued. People wrote in to say how intellectually dishonest that was, how they felt duped, cheated.
Cheated of what? Truth is the unspoken promise of columnists who write about ordinary life. Let’s not venture into the unspoken promise of columnists who write about politics lest we find ourselves with a libel suit on our hands. Readers want the truth in everyday life – real life, not fiction. If you write as a wheelchair-bound man, you better be a wheelchair-bound man because that’s whose experience the readers want to learn about. We need to be aware of those things.
So I’ve worked feverishly answering queries. I’m sure there will be problems, a few unhappy people, some who find the product expensive, which I said up front it was, some who will not be as relieved as I was as quickly. But I am arthritic and the pads helped me quickly. As a columnist who writes about nothing, I just wanted to share what eased my pain. Now that I realize it might potentially help so many out there, I’m happy to be of service, to bring some relief to the ordinariness of everyday life.
"Let me help you out," I volunteered. I am her teacher after all. "What you really want to say is you like my column because I write about ordinary things."
"Yes, that’s exactly it. No political opinions, nothing ponderous or heavy, just the stuff of everyday life. I enjoy that, can relate to it," she said.
And for a few weeks, ordinary life was pain-ridden. Housebound, I had nothing to write about except rheumatoid arthritis and an e-mailed suggestion from a stranger that brought quick relief. I wrote about Kinotakara, mindlessly presented myself as an information source because I hadn’t asked Chichi Magno for permission to print her contact numbers. I thought I should rightfully serve as a buffer between the two of my five readers who suffer backache and Chichi. I thought it would be manageable. Was I in for a big surprise!
As of Tuesday, I have received almost 200 responses. Computer-phobic older people asked children, nieces and nephews to e-mail. Where do we get in touch with Chichi? How do we get this product? People who had computers at home e-mailed on Saturday and Sunday. On Monday, overwhelming e-mail from people who had access to computers at work, that began to taper off on Tuesday. Some went into excruciating detail describing their pain or disease. Suddenly, I was glued to the computer answering queries. Suddenly, I was worried. What if the plasters don’t work on them as they did on me? Why are they talking to me like I’m a doctor? This seems like such tremendous responsibility. I’m just a columnist who writes about nothing, just an arthritic person who found relief in this strange new product.
This overwhelming reaction told me many things. One, I have more than five readers. If this is a dipstick, then I have more than 200 and if it is true that people who respond make up three percent of your total audience, then my column about nothing at all is widely read. Now, I have to take it more seriously.
Two, many people out there suffer from aches and pains and they will try anything to find relief. That they should believe a columnist should give their doctors sleepless nights. It means they’re not finding relief in what their doctors prescribe. It means traditional medicine is losing ground to alternative, at least in the mind where it all begins.
Three, pain more profoundly affects life than pleasure. When I write about pleasure, I don’t get this kind of response. I think this says that we – and I pointedly include myself – don’t know where to go to find comfort. I comfort myself writing about it and suddenly we’re a special-interest group. Arthritics of the world, unite! We may become a political force! We could sell our votes and raise money for Kinotakara! Just joking, of course.
So here I am virtually shackled to my computer disseminating information, all the time worrying – what if it doesn’t work on them the way it worked on me? Are they going to sue me for malpractice? But I’m not a doctor and this isn’t to be taken internally so I can’t possibly get into trouble over writing about something that really brought me relief. In an unexpected way, this is public service – the personal essayist’s brand of public service. It teeters dangerously on the brink of an endorsement, which raises an ethical question: Should columnists endorse products? I think personal essayists can ethically if it is truly based on personal experience. I don’t think I could have written this in an unbranded way. It would not have helped. I don’t even know the generic name of this product though someone did write in to say you can get them at Chinese drugstores, but she didn’t say what they were called.
Five years ago, on a visit to San Francisco, I noticed a change in the character of new newspaper columns. There were more columns on ordinary life but they were written from very specific columnist profiles. There were two I particularly enjoyed. One was a househusband profile, a journal of discovery of household chores from the point of view of someone who had never done them before. The other profile was that of a handicapped man who was wheelchair-bound. While I was there, one of the female editors of the paper resigned to move to another publication and so the paper announced that the column of the man in the wheelchair would end. She, the resigning female editor, had written it all along from her imagination. A furor ensued. People wrote in to say how intellectually dishonest that was, how they felt duped, cheated.
Cheated of what? Truth is the unspoken promise of columnists who write about ordinary life. Let’s not venture into the unspoken promise of columnists who write about politics lest we find ourselves with a libel suit on our hands. Readers want the truth in everyday life – real life, not fiction. If you write as a wheelchair-bound man, you better be a wheelchair-bound man because that’s whose experience the readers want to learn about. We need to be aware of those things.
So I’ve worked feverishly answering queries. I’m sure there will be problems, a few unhappy people, some who find the product expensive, which I said up front it was, some who will not be as relieved as I was as quickly. But I am arthritic and the pads helped me quickly. As a columnist who writes about nothing, I just wanted to share what eased my pain. Now that I realize it might potentially help so many out there, I’m happy to be of service, to bring some relief to the ordinariness of everyday life.
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