Boice’s chapter “Moderate Emotions” made me think of the Chinese contemporary poet Hai Zi who died of suicide when he was 25 in 1989. He was said to have been writing intensely during the years before his death, often throughout the night. He had also practiced qigoing, which somehow caused him to hallucinate, another factor believed to have caused his suicide. He left behind him 200 or so lyric poems and several epics; all seemed to be written with some kind of emotional intensity and many of them will no doubt remain to be masterpieces in Chinese literature.
I wonder whether he could have done or ended differently had he exercised moderation, the mode of conduct that permeated classical Eastern philosophy and Boice’s book. Hai Zi, a lover of the classics and a devotee to Tibetan and Indian Buddhism, nevertheless couldn’t or didn’t want to be moderate, as if he was destined not to.
Boice’s advice is certainly sound and appealing, but people’s writing habit is largely based on who they are and what they believe works for them. Nowadays, I write quite differently from what I used to, agreeing more with Wordsworth that poetry (or other genres of writing) “takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility,” with which Boice’s idea seems to agree as well. But nobody can guarantee that’s the only way to generate good work.
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