I try to avoid narcissistic writing. I feel like I've been down that road before, perhaps a few too many times. The charged posts, the reflective and emotional ones, are always the most embarrassing to look back on. Like whatever I was feeling at the time seems so ludicrous now, insignificant. But that's the nature of context, and if we don't write it who's to say we'll remember? And I think it entirely possible that the ability to relate to the various incarnations of oneself is as important as the gift of relating to other people.
It's a part of a writer's condition, I think, feeling drawn to immortalizing a gesture or moment to compile something of a self-portrait. People say writing is therapeutic and I don't disagree. We're all fishes glittering about without a clue who we are or what's going on or how we can establish a benchmark of normality to mark ourselves against-- so we write to enact this journey of self-identification. But it seems to me like the whole thing is largely masturbatory. Look at Bloom and Zeno, two of our favorite journeyers. Look even at Odysseus. Nobody really ends up anywhere. It's tragedy. Then, however, I think that maybe it's the craft-- the process-- of writing that defines the journey as much if not more so than its actual history. There's something to be said about the fiction in nonfiction, also. How we say and what we choose not to. And how it relates and interacts so violently with the cerebral practice of putting words to paper.
But anyway, I try to avoid narcissism. I try to avoid the livejournal voice. But without it all I've got are ideas, and what's the value in those? There's a void in my blog writing where I think voice belongs, but we're talking about quite a monster here. What voice does in writing, to me, is give a personality and chronology (humanity) to the text. Good fiction establishes persona with a compelling voice (through word choice, sentence construction, syntax, form, etc. etc. etc..) but personal essay, and let's be real-- that's what this is-- when it has a voice that is honest and endearing it requires a substantial sacrafice on the part of the essaysit. For a voice to be tangible and relatable and real there's some required vulnerability, some terrifying risk.
So if I am to write about my life, like I've done before, from a place of truth... well
it's going to take some work.
Also: everyone should read xkcd. Check it and feel some good vibes to start this week with.
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1 comment:
I find it so funny when I look back at old entries and I look at the stuff I wrote about. Things that I thought at the time were trivial, now are, like you said, insignificant.
It kills me to think of all the times that I wasted tears and efforts into things that aren't important anymore. I'm not embarrassed of them, I felt those things at the time for a reason. I was in the moment. I was thinking in the now rather than what I would think of it in the future.
And then it makes me think about things I write about now. Things that are upsetting me now, will they matter in a couple months? Or would they be just as insignificant as the last? What am I really writing about? Is it important in the grand scheme of things? Hmm, I guess we'll find out in a few months.
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