Here’s a lovely reminder that writers need to turn outward, not just inward. In writing about “the other,” one writes the self.
“We think that to find ourselves we need turn inward, examining the intricacies of origin, the shaping forces of personality. But ‘I’ is just as much to be found in the world; looking outward, we experience the one who does the seeing. Say what you see and you experience yourself through your style of seeing and saying.”
That quote is by Mark Doty in Still Life with Oysters and Lemon
Still Life with a Glass and Oysters
Jan Davidsz de Heem (Dutch, Utrecht 1606–1683/84 Antwerp)