Feelin fine

Fuck it, writing is impossible. All of the words I have are either dumb and self-indulgent or dumb and overdramatic or dumb and untruthful or some combination of those. I’m not sure what my point is, I am increasingly uncertain if I’ve ever been sure of what my point is, I question the existence of such a concept as a ‘point’.

Why bother with communication if there’s nothing to communicate? What is this mandatory attendance bullshit? Listen, I want as much as anyone for me to be the guy who’s here every week to provide insight and interest in text form, but apparently I can’t always be that guy. That guy is a made up guy. Fuck that guy.

I’m trying. I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel, and mostly coming up with splinters and resin. I’m voiding exactly how frustrated I am by the process of trying to write something into words and you’re reading those words right now. If I can’t communicate anything else today, I can at least communicate how hard I’m trying to communicate something!

And, in the end isn’t that what it’s really all about? No. No it isn’t, shut up, that’s dumb. It’s about creating ideas, it’s about shifting perspectives, that’s what it’s about. It’s about breaking apart ideas of what things are and can be, and thereby allowing people to expand upon them. It’s not about me, what I’m trying to say, but about you, about what you read from what I write, about how it changes the way your mind works, if only ever so slightly, from that point on.

Art is a game of telephones, and you either win or you die. On stage. Metaphorically. As you write the words that will be consumed, you have only a vague idea of how they’ll be digested, who will devour them, how they will form them, but you do it anyway in the hopes that those words will nourish someone at a time when they need it. Words are an unknown seed, and the only way to identify what they will create is to plant them. Even then it can be difficult, since so many other seeds have been planted. Which one is it that is bearing fruit now?

That’s why I’m writing, now, even when I don’t know what to write. It’s partially to meet a deadline, yes, partially to live up to the expectations I’ve set for myself – but, more importantly, it’s because I don’t know which of the things I say will turn out to be good, worthwhile, revelatory. I’ve certainly been surprised before. It isn’t  for the author to know what’s good, what’s worthwhile, what’s powerful and meaningful. I write when I don’t know what to write because it’s possible the most important thing I have yet to say lies somewhere in that blank white void, and I’ll never find out unless I try to say it.

I can only do what I can.

6 Comments

  1. For someone that doesn’t know what to write, you’re written a lot… so maybe you are living up to your expectations? or maybe, you might have to change your expectations?? I do love your honesty, if I were to write my thoughts (hey – that’s a good start, just continue to right your thoughts), I’d be here all day, I just have to much to express, my struggle is that I want to put it in pictures, and skill sometimes restrict me.

  2. I love the perspective. Words as seeds to nourish someone who as a fledgling has the potential to grow into oak tree status! We need words as much as we need food and water and thats why our generations are falling apart the failure to communicate…

  3. If you’re a good writer the ideas will flow to you easily. Bad writing always suffer from writers block and they should change careers.
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