On a whim, I looked up the definition of “author” at dictionary.com.  I wondered if I would find anything interesting about the origin of this word.  When did people begin using it?  Did the word “author” begin with Latin? Middle English?  Old English?  French?

Well, it wasn’t the answers to the questions above that really caught my eye.  It was the following quote from Franz Kafka:

“…[W]riting means revealing onesself to excess …. This is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why even night is not night enough. … I have often thought that the best mode of life for me would be to sit in the innermost room of a spacious locked cellar with my writing things and a lamp. Food would be brought and always put down far away from my room, outside the cellar’s outermost door. The walk to my food, in my dressing gown, through the vaulted cellars, would be my only exercise. I would then return to my table, eat slowly and with deliberation, then start writing again at once. And how I would write! From what depths I would drag it up!” [Franz Kafka]¹

When I read the above passage, Kafka’s description of his ideal writing life struck me as very “zen.”  The way Kafka describes picking up his food and then eating it with “deliberation” reminds me of how Buddhist teachers always stress “being in the moment” or “being present.”  Buddhist teachers often use eating a meal or drinking tea to illustrate what it means to “be in the present moment.”  For example, if you drink a cup of tea, focus on that tea’s aroma.  Focus on the tea’s various flavors.  How does the tea feel as you swallow?  And, what does the act of swallowing feel like?  And so on.

After reading Kafka’s scenario, I also realized that the pacing of the writing reflects the slow and deliberate actions Kafka would take if allowed to live his ideal writing life.  And for the first time, I “heard” Kafka’s enthusiasm about writing.   I have never really pictured Kafka as enthusiastic about anything.  Quite the opposite in fact.

I just found this quote to be a neat piece of writing that gives the reader a glimpse into Kafka’s mind.

1. “author.” Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 19 Nov. 2008. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/author>. [↩]

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