Writing as Religion and the Incomparable Work Ethic of J.D. Salinger

In my recent search for inspiration, I discovered a movie called Rebel in the Rye about the life of J.D. Salinger. I, like most, read The Catcher in the Rye as an impressionable young adult. I enjoyed it but didn’t think it was Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was and remains my favorite book. More interesting than the immense popularity of Salinger’s masterpiece, though, is the writing life of J.D. Salinger.

Salinger wrote much of Catcher while engaged in combat, everyday, for over a year. It was his escape while serving in World War II. He returned with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), with symptoms including nightmares and hallucinations. Salinger’s struggle with PTSD left him blocked and unable to write. He was afraid putting words to the page would trigger hallucinations of his war memories, especially when it came to writing about Holden Caulfield, the hero of Catcher.

Eventually Salinger discovered meditation as a means to treat his PTSD. My favorite part of Rebel in the Rye is when Salinger, portrayed by Nicholas Hault, who gives a great performance, starts freewriting. Freeing himself of expectations and the burden of choosing a topic, Salinger is able to write and takes joy in throwing the pages away. “I threw away three pages yesterday,” he gleefully tells his guru. Soon he starts writing pages worth keeping, and Salinger starts using writing as religion.

If you visit J.D. Salinger’s Wikipedia page, you’ll discover he practiced Zen Buddhism and Ramakrishna’s Advaita Vedanta Hinduism. But the higher power that brought him relief was writing. Advaita Vedanta Hinduism actually gave him reason to abandon his family for writing. Everyday he’d put on his overalls and lock himself in a barn to write, sometimes for days. Salinger’s incomparable work ethic came at the cost of his general ethics, but he must have thought the benefit was worth it.

I don’t have PTSD, but we all have issues we deal with on a daily basis. Some of those issues overwhelm us and make it nearly impossible to do work or even function in society. I’ve suffered from depression since the end of 2016, and in 2019, I stopped writing almost entirely. At the time I wasn’t aware of the benefit writing provided me. I had been paid to write for almost a decade, and when writing ceased being my profession, the words were worth less to me, until they were entirely worthless in my mind.

Writing words is never entirely worthless, however, and that goes for anyone, not just writers. The act of writing can be therapeutic for anyone. Putting our troubling thoughts or problems onto paper can help us deal with them. That’s why so many psychologists recommend keeping a journal. It not only allows them into the mind of their patients, but allows patients to better understand the depths of their own minds.

Rebel in the Rye indicates that J.D. Salinger’s incomparable work ethic was a fanatical religious exorcise. In my attempts to quit using alcohol and drugs, I’ve struggled to come up with “a higher power” to help me shoulder the burden of my addictions. Russell Brand’s Recovery helped for awhile. I was alcohol-free for more than two years.

Recently I watched Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, starring Jonah Hill, who plays an alcoholic whose higher power is Chucky, the evil doll from the movie franchise. That’s when I realized my higher power could be literally anything, but it wasn’t until I saw Rebel in the Rye that I knew what my higher power should be: writing.