What Quantum Theory Taught Me About the Emily Dickinson Complex

or: Hi, welcome to my substack

I’ve journaled on and off for many years. Just as I rely on verbose and elegant writing for some sense of peace, I’m also liberated by putting things down as simply as they occur to me.

But, I have always had this horrible notion that the journal is being read by three minds—the initial one (deep and perhaps subconscious), which is presenting the words I’m writing; the mediator, which is reading the words I’m writing as they’re being written (a jerk! I do not like this one); and the recipient, a stranger far into the future who never knew me and encountered said diary against all odds. I wonder: What would they think of me? What would they glean from what I wrote, and how I chose to write it? Who would I be to that person, and how would that in whatever way immortalize me?

This is an embarrassingly Truman Show-style kind of preoccupation, yes, but worse, it undermines what journaling should be. Those expectations feed into my intentions, and it skews the data of what goes into my diary. It becomes no longer a space by me for me but one which contains an ever-present shadow that looms over my shoulder and tries to footnote the truth into something narratively appealing.

I have yet to shed this illusory, romantic expectation, this Emily Dickinson complex, such that it’s even permeated my relationship with my creative writing. Hiding everything away, contemplating what people might think, and then deciding that I won’t give them the chance to. But, it’s not advice I would give anyone. And frankly, instead of that shadow, I would rather it be my friends, family, real people on the other side of what’s being said.

Outside of journaling, I have considered myself a writer for over ten years, and I’ve been consistently writing for well over five. Some of it’s been discarded, much of it’s gone unfinished, and all of it’s been locked in a drawer.

The wannabe quantum physicist in me knows the question “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it really make a noise?” is not the “gotcha” a lot of people make it out to be. In quantum theory, the power of observation is not considered to be an afterthought, but an integral element of the scene itself. Observation is, with no irony, participation.

Abbi Jacobson did an interview with Courtney Barnett about a year and a half ago, and I haven’t stopped thinking about something she said in it:

My favorite teacher in college said this thing that stuck with me: The art is not the piece on the wall, it’s the space between the viewer and the piece. However anyone interprets the painting or your music or my show, that’s true. Which is bananas to think about, because my intention is still true, but the way they took it is also a truth about the thing.

Of course, she’s referring to the gap between artistic intention and the viewers’ takeaway (which I also agree with), but my thesis still stands. Art—maybe everything—is not necessarily the thing itself, but rather how it interacts with and responds to its audience.

All this is to say, I don’t want to hoard things anymore. I don’t want to be precious or calculated or territorial over my work. I have a writing document containing over 200 pages of ideas that have not seen the light of day. Those fragmented stanzas and one-off story ideas deserve more than that, and I deserve more than that.

So, welcome. Hi :) I’m learning the value of consistency and courage and showing up for yourself (thanks Suzan-Lori Parks!) constantly now. I have a lot of people to thank for helping bring me to that conclusion, and I hope maybe this newsletter—whatever it is or becomes with as little expectation as possible please keep them low for all our sakes and that’s not even me being self-deprecating I just really think anything worth doing requires this—can pay it forward. And finally, I hope if you were waiting to give yourself permission to do something, this can be your sign.

“It’s also because most writers really and truly have to give themselves permission to win. That’s very difficult, particularly for women. You have to give yourself permission, even when you’re doing it. Writing every day, sending books off, you still have to give yourself permission.” -Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard

xx,

Mollie