On Writing and Critical Thinking

There is nothing more fulfilling than your words resonating with another human soul. And in being on the margins, that connection is far more meaningful than you might imagine.

Hello and Salaam my friends,

This week’s guest post is by someone who I greatly admire. I edited several of her pieces while at Amaliah, and I always wish I could access her brain just to get a glimpse of how her mind works. One of my favourite pieces by her explores the paradox of language in relation to the current genocide of Palestinians. She’s a phenomenal thinker, and this piece is a glimpse into her world.

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I’ve always been fascinated by the link between writing and thinking, particularly because of the role writing plays in my own ability to think, and to think more critically.

I’ve often described my love of writing as a kind of paradox, as it’s the loss of words that I’m often met with that leads me most searching for them. I’ve always found it strange that my response to a kind of linguistic paralysis is to try to chuck more language at the situation. Almost as though they are clothes I am trying on for shape. Words I am using to give definition and form to the amorphous mass of thoughts and feeling I possess at any given time.

There are obviously dangerous implications to the suggestion that language is generative or formative – in as much as a larger vocabulary gives you the capacity to think or feel more. Because we know as human beings we all have capacity to feel and think broadly and our language is an ability to make that feeling intelligible to others. Rather, we know that a broader repertoire of language means we are able to express more, and to do so accurately.

There is a strange sense of power in that feeling of being able to tackle that cloud of emotion and feeling, and tether it to something material. Words and language are strangely paradoxical again, because they are action and inaction all at once. They give you the feeling of doing, when often they sit in its absence.

Almost everything I’ve written comes from the desire to grapple with my feelings and thoughts, not those on the surface that we piece together using borrowed language and terms - of mainstream media, popular culture and other things accessible to our content fuelled life. But those feelings that sit deeper, often below the levels of obvious consciousness and which are mine and mine alone, that the world might not have borne witness to - that I haven’t. And often those thoughts and feelings come from being on the margin, from looking from the outside in. They are by their very nature critical because of who I am and where I’m posited in culture and history. The distance I often have from the centre affords me a kind of scope and context by which to make more critical judgements.

Writing has helped me to unlock that identity and its relationship to what we might deem criticism. And the act of criticism is complex. It’s as complex as the admonishing comment you may get from a parent or someone with an over familiarity to you. It often comes from a place of love, but externalised and disassociated from its subject, it is cold and sometimes cruel and punishing. It’s that over familiarity itself that might not be reciprocated, which puts in the bracket of criticism. It is a two way process that renders it alien.

I often think of my body of work as critical of mainstream popular culture, despite it being borne from a kind of reluctant love of it. Much of that culture is my home and origins, places where I may not be accepted but I exist in my entirety by virtue of the fact that I was born in those moments. It is those places that look back at me with hostility, and therefore invite my commentary. It’s often hard to distinguish who is the active body and who is the passive one in this situation. And whether writing itself is a means to reclaim an active identity rather than be resigned to a passive one already written for you. Perhaps that search for language and meaning is deeper than we may perceive it to be.

I’ve always believed writing is an act for others - I’ve almost always been motivated to write by a desire to share a thought or feeling as opposed to a desire to explore the chambers of my own thoughts - and that’s why I think it’s greatest reward is always connection. There is nothing more fulfilling than your words resonating with another human soul. And in being on the margins, in writing from a critical capacity, that connection is far more meaningful than you might imagine, it is comforting and affirming. In the same way writing becomes a form of self-realisation - selecting and discarding words until I understand myself better - I feel its goal is often to help others realise themselves better too.

That when you thread together words to form sentences that stitch together your very internal world, you can sometimes hold a mirror up to others, of their own internal worlds too.

Once those words are brought to life, and connect with other conscious human souls, they begin to create a kind of shared standard and a norm that I feel has the power to create change. When we look at how much discourse has shifted over the past few years, this is undoubtedly due to the proliferation of smaller media groups, platforms and the democratisation caused by social media. Without this, the cultural and political needle would have been stuck on the zany vanilla-ism that’s made up most of mainstream media and which still dominates today. Our most interesting ideas, and revealing commentary has always come from the fringes, before they’re eaten up and appropriated by the main. It’s a kind of democratised Overton window which allows those of us that don’t control the narrative to attempt to shift it, to create and forge new norms.
 
And writing, and indeed criticism, is its best when it comes from a place that is pure of ego. And it resonates best when it’s greeted from people who read it without one too. The reason social media has created such a dichotomous culture, and binary views, is because of the main character syndrome it’s given birth to, which means we almost always approach the word centring our own selves, rather than the kind of openness and curiosity that allows us to see things in their entirety. Indeed it is sometimes the lack of self-criticism, and awareness, that causes our writing – communication and attempt to make connection, sense and meaning of the world – to fall short. This is why I feel writing, and giving yourself the intellectual breathing space, helps us to be better readers too, and not just of the written word.

Ultimately, our ability to challenge narratives that comes from the symbiosis of reading and writing, is what allows us to challenge those narratives that make up our world, that society often accepts and conforms to without question. Writing’s role in helping us to disrupt and challenge the way we perceive and communicate that will always draw me back to my keyboard.

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If you enjoyed Mariya’s piece and would love to contribute to the newsletter, kindly reach out at qalbwriterscollective@gmail.com.

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Till next time,

Suad