Existential crisis #53789
Lately, I've been wondering if blogging is really the medium for stuff I'm interested in exploring.
The first problem is that I'm a little introverted. To be a little more accurate, I'm a blackhole of introversion. Not always good at sharing, or comfortable doing it. I don't even know what would be my equivalent of Jessie's vaginal discharge story, but I'm pretty sure I'd never tell it. I can't really talk about work either, because despite the fact that I'm a mere lowly factotum, I could still - very, very easily - be fired for disclosing just about anything that happens to go on there.
My personal life is largely out of bounds as well. While I could change the names to protect the guilty - mostly myself - everyone in Toronto knows everybody else. I doubt anyone would be really impressed or fooled if I tried something like that, and I don't think it would be too classy of me to try. I guess I could start a super-secret blog that no one else knew about where I could write about my feelings and relationships, but that seems heart-stoppingly lame. It sort of captures the heart of the contradiction. I'd like everyone to read this, and while I realize that one of the rules of blogging is to never talk about what you read on someone else's blog - I have no idea why - I also want the privacy to say exactly what I think. I know that's what journals are for, but wasn't the entire point of blogging to have a journal everyone could read? Or am I just missing the point again?
This all ties into something that's been eating at me lately; whether or not I'm actually that much of a writer. I don't mean that I need reassurance that I'm a "good" writer, I'm pretty sure that I know by now what my strengths and weaknesses are. It's just that I'm beginning to wonder if being a writer is something I really have a calling for. I've been mistaken about creative callings in the past - I actually wanted to be a philosophy professor at one point - and sometimes I wonder if this might not be another example. Put plainly, writing is just a job, like being a tailor or a garbage man. I am militantly opposed to the concept of the writer as the revolutionary vanguard of human consciousness. I consider that to be largely a romantic hangover, but I know that part of the reason why I'm so opposed to it now is because it's something I used to fervently believe when I was but a pretentious, wayward youth.
As a pretentious, wayward young man I've learned better. Now I just think it's something people do because they're good at it. What exactly is writing for? In a letter to a friend, Flannery O'Connor said the question never really occurred to her until she was three quarters finished her masters in English. She went on to say that she she was pretty sure that there were people with PhD's who taught English in universities to whom that question never occurred - not because she thought she was particularly more insightful than them - simply because it occurred to her by accident. I know a question like that would have never occurred to me had a writer like O'Connor not asked it.
Of course, I have no idea what the answer is. I don't like letting go of the idea of myself as a writer. Writing, in some shape or another has become an integral part of my identity. It's how I think of myself when I think of that one creative thing I do. Can't sing, can't dance, can't act. But I say to myself at least you can write! But I don't. At least not very often. I'm not sure if it's because I lack the imagination or the desire, but sometimes I feel like it has to be something big. If I'm not a writer, then I'm not quite sure what I can replace it with. Some days I feel I should just resign myself to the fact that I'm meant to be a consumer of culture, but never a producer.
I know the easy answer to all of this is that I should just keep writing. But I haven't really written anything-anything I would really consider writing-in several months. I've never published anything, period. It seems that I mostly just use writing as some sort of therapeutic aid for private trauma, usually me morbidly over-reacting to something.
So what's my point? I'm wondering the same thing. I guess it's just that recently I've been feeling that "Had potential" is going to be the epitaph they carve on my tombstone.
The first problem is that I'm a little introverted. To be a little more accurate, I'm a blackhole of introversion. Not always good at sharing, or comfortable doing it. I don't even know what would be my equivalent of Jessie's vaginal discharge story, but I'm pretty sure I'd never tell it. I can't really talk about work either, because despite the fact that I'm a mere lowly factotum, I could still - very, very easily - be fired for disclosing just about anything that happens to go on there.
My personal life is largely out of bounds as well. While I could change the names to protect the guilty - mostly myself - everyone in Toronto knows everybody else. I doubt anyone would be really impressed or fooled if I tried something like that, and I don't think it would be too classy of me to try. I guess I could start a super-secret blog that no one else knew about where I could write about my feelings and relationships, but that seems heart-stoppingly lame. It sort of captures the heart of the contradiction. I'd like everyone to read this, and while I realize that one of the rules of blogging is to never talk about what you read on someone else's blog - I have no idea why - I also want the privacy to say exactly what I think. I know that's what journals are for, but wasn't the entire point of blogging to have a journal everyone could read? Or am I just missing the point again?
This all ties into something that's been eating at me lately; whether or not I'm actually that much of a writer. I don't mean that I need reassurance that I'm a "good" writer, I'm pretty sure that I know by now what my strengths and weaknesses are. It's just that I'm beginning to wonder if being a writer is something I really have a calling for. I've been mistaken about creative callings in the past - I actually wanted to be a philosophy professor at one point - and sometimes I wonder if this might not be another example. Put plainly, writing is just a job, like being a tailor or a garbage man. I am militantly opposed to the concept of the writer as the revolutionary vanguard of human consciousness. I consider that to be largely a romantic hangover, but I know that part of the reason why I'm so opposed to it now is because it's something I used to fervently believe when I was but a pretentious, wayward youth.
As a pretentious, wayward young man I've learned better. Now I just think it's something people do because they're good at it. What exactly is writing for? In a letter to a friend, Flannery O'Connor said the question never really occurred to her until she was three quarters finished her masters in English. She went on to say that she she was pretty sure that there were people with PhD's who taught English in universities to whom that question never occurred - not because she thought she was particularly more insightful than them - simply because it occurred to her by accident. I know a question like that would have never occurred to me had a writer like O'Connor not asked it.
Of course, I have no idea what the answer is. I don't like letting go of the idea of myself as a writer. Writing, in some shape or another has become an integral part of my identity. It's how I think of myself when I think of that one creative thing I do. Can't sing, can't dance, can't act. But I say to myself at least you can write! But I don't. At least not very often. I'm not sure if it's because I lack the imagination or the desire, but sometimes I feel like it has to be something big. If I'm not a writer, then I'm not quite sure what I can replace it with. Some days I feel I should just resign myself to the fact that I'm meant to be a consumer of culture, but never a producer.
I know the easy answer to all of this is that I should just keep writing. But I haven't really written anything-anything I would really consider writing-in several months. I've never published anything, period. It seems that I mostly just use writing as some sort of therapeutic aid for private trauma, usually me morbidly over-reacting to something.
So what's my point? I'm wondering the same thing. I guess it's just that recently I've been feeling that "Had potential" is going to be the epitaph they carve on my tombstone.
posted by Sam at
4:32 PM
|
8 Comments
