I just read a wonderful essay from a book called, How I Write - The Secret Lives of Authors. It made me want, in a way I never have before, to find the writer in myself. Not to make a living at it, although it would be grand if I could, but because I might never be better at anything else than I am at writing - regardless of how good that actually is.
For years, people in my life - teachers, relatives, the odd friend - have breezily suggested I become “a writer”. I'm sure they meant well, but that doesn't mean I took them seriously. For one thing, there's no money in it and I'm already well on my way to broke, thank you very much. For another thing, I can put words together as well as the next guy but no one (not since my last English class, anyway) has demanded to know my opinion on anything not directly related to my own life. That means I'd have to write strictly for the sake of doing it rather than to satisfy public demand, which already happens in my journal - though it goes without saying that’s a No Public Access area. To write about other people’s opinions, on the other hand, would save me the work it takes to think a thing and then express it nicely but would still require that I find someone clever enough to steal from. And avoid plagiarism charges.
The thought has lingered, though, and in moments of optimism I go back to it. My last attempt at a blog - yes, I've tried before - was unsatisfying, namely because I’d begun it out of writing envy. See, when I read something great written by someone I don’t know, I can ascribe to them superhuman (and therefore unattainable) skill that I could never hope to possess; I can believe such skill is genuinely beyond my reach, saving me the effort of trying. But my brother had been writing really great stuff for his blog and when I read great stuff written by someone I actually know, a real person who eats regular food and walks on land, I feel like I've been caught napping. I have to face the fact that that could be me – or might be me – if I actually put some work into it. So I tried blogging as a way of keeping up with the Joneses, and that’s just what I did: I compared my writing to everyone else’s, trying to measure its merit and determine whether it was good enough to stand public scrutiny, based on other people’s stuff. Bad idea. There will always be someone who writes better than I do just as there will always be someone who thinks I'm a dork, but I still let self-doubt convince me to abandon it.
The glass ceiling I've installed in this particular area of my life, the reason I don't write and put it out in the world, boils down to fear. Fear that I'll want acceptance so badly that rejection will be too much to bear, fear that I'll sweat blood over a piece that no one will love - or even like, but mostly fear that this one thing I do pretty well will still end up being not very good by the world's measure. I’ve been afraid of realizing – or maybe admitting – that I am really and truly unremarkable. On the other hand, though I'll likely live my life to the end without being the blue-ribbon best at anything, I can imagine in the absence of verifiable proof that anything was possible. Y'know, the way that lotto ticket you haven't checked could be the winning ticket for as long as you don't check it.
I can be Schrödinger’s Writer.
But the older I get, the more ridiculous that policy seems. Really? Feel good about yourself because you didn’t technically fail at that thing you didn’t technically attempt? Shit, you might as well climb in the box now and wait for it all to be over. Or you could just swallow your neurosis and write a blog: a pedantic one that nobody reads, if that’s how it turns out, but for pete’s sake write it.
Here, then, I am. Writing. The box is open and I'm alive.
