our walls and magazine cutouts inexplicably linked to op-eds, strings of yarn spider webbing across our attic. And Freud? Freud taught us that we don’t need to worry about obsession. Why? Because we all share the exact same obsessions. We are all obsessed with our mothers and fathers and sex. In fact, we’re so obsessed with sex that we can’t look at a high-dive diving board without seeing a phallus. The two worlds collide when cable channels run specials on those with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. So let’s be clear. When I talk about obsession in writing, I am not talking about the guy who lives next door and hoards broken toy train parts. I’m definitely not talking about the woman who flicks the light switch on and off ten times every time she enters and exits a room. I refuse to talk about the man who believes the government is controlled by a group of a hundred men who make up the New World Order. (The government doesn’t want anyone talking about him.) I’m curious as to what the driving force behind a writer’s work is. That driving force can (and often does) change. It changes from project to project and from day to day. Sometimes it’s an abstract thought; I’ve been thinking a lot about how light and gravity interact. Other times it’s a concrete idea or image; like I stated earlier, I’ve been obsessing over mazes and labyrinths. The word for this force that pesters us and makes us write is “Obsession.” Like many words in the English language, the word obsession doesn’t mean what many in mainstream culture think it means. The word is closely related to possession, as in possession by an evil spirit. But, it does not mean an entire possession. The body is left unpossessed, but the spirit is still present. Think of besiegement of someone by a lover. The lover won’t leave the object of desire alone, no matter the cost, but they are aware of their infatuation, their lustful obsession. These are our obsessions. Perhaps the best way to look at obsession is at its root. Beneath the surface it is a term for war. Obsession comes from the Latin word, obsessio.
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