The Art of Stigmatic Miracles

Naser K. Alabduljalil

University of San Diego

San Diego, California

There were many times in the past when, in the act of writing, certain things about the subject became clearer to us. Concepts and topics that seemed formidable and impossible to understand and digest, became somehow easier to understand when we wrote our thoughts on paper. We realized that we think better on paper, that the different nuances and intricacies of a subject become more amenable to analysis, once we are able to write about them. It is not that we have answers and solutions ready made when we begin writing. What happens is that the subject matter becomes like a wrapped present, and our writing is our hand slowly unraveling the ribbon and taking the wrapper off to discover what lies beneath it.

It dawned on us that taking writing seriously changes what we really are. In spite of ourselves, we discover that writing takes us to the core of things, or at least it brings us closer to the truth of things, sans the wrappers and the fancy trimmings. It is as if the very act of writing itself brings order to what would otherwise remain a murky jumble of thoughts in one’s head. It is as if the very act of writing puts into focus one’s vision and is able to get a clear picture of what it is that is the focus of attention. The stray thoughts disappear in the act of focusing, one becomes composed and less dissipated, and the world zooms out as the subject matter and the writing act becomes the sole reality. One quickens to one’s thought processes, and what seemed initially to be a complicated task suddenly becomes more manageable.

The truth behind the subject matter being written about itself becomes somehow more palpable behind the words, not so far away, just around the corner, waiting to be unearthed. What seems at first to be a series of random thoughts take on an underlying order that becomes clearer the more intense and earnest one’s focus on the subject matter becomes. There comes a moment, when everything falls into place and the writing becomes the only reality, that a whole universe of meaning explodes and one is then totally absorbed and transported to a different place. Externally the physical environment remains the same, but internally something metamorphoses. Time stops and the whole universe itself seems to disappear into an intense single point of awareness.

The world is a string of words giving reality to our thoughts. We are in a trance, and everything falls into place, as if by magic. We emerge from our writing with truth in our hand, like a person who has gone to the ends of the earth to capture the proverbial white whale, and has come back with the white whale in tow. Writing has come to resemble this experience and this missive, a journey into the unknown, where everything becomes clearer, and we together transformed into new people and transported into a different world.

That, and the realization that the more we write, the more we write about ourselves. we realize that when we are writing we always write about ourselves, and the act of writing is really an act of self-exploration and self-discovery. In a way writing for us is an act of self-meditation. We become more aware of our thoughts and our thinking process, we become intensely aware of the act itself, and can become engrossed in the topic that we are writing. We realize there is no going around with dealing with oneself when writing, even when one is writing about things that seem impersonal, dry and academic. We realize that with this latter assertion, this article is its own evidence. We do not know if other people experience writing the same way that we do, if they undergo the same set of experiences and transformations. We feel the experience is universal, but in the end we can only speak for ourselves. Writing here is really an act of self-revelation as much as it is an act of self-discovery. To write, for us, finally, is to discover and to be found out.

Tags: art, kuwaiti, miracles, nebras, NUKS, NUKS-USA, stigmatic, students, writing, إتحاد, طلبة الكويت, فن, كتابة, ناصر العبدالجليل, نبراس