dirty laundry

Every now and then, I confront the question: Why do I write? This is different from the question: Why write? There are a lot of really great and romantic reasons to give for the second. For the first, not so much. I'm pretty sure I write because of a compulsion to do whatever I can to make people like me. So, following the logic, I must think I'm a good writer. And so I do, sometimes. But when I return to this blog and read over some of my blatherings, I cringe as the many critics in my head and the voices I've given to the people who probably don't even read this accuse me of fraudulence, denounce my writing as self-important and trivial. Worse, I imagine someone happening across my page and thinking to themselves, "Well... he's really trying... and that's worth something, isn't it?" This makes my face flush. I really hate caring about what you think of me.

And so I arrive at an even more interesting question: Why, knowing all this, do I continue to write? Answer: I'm insane, and I (apparently) wish to remain that way. Here is an instance which backs my theory:

A couple of weeks ago, I felt like I needed to write a letter. (At least, this is what I was telling myself. I didn't.) I stared at the computer screen for a while, and then I typed a couple sentences. My heart was racing, my adrenaline pumping, because I knew full well I was doing what I should not. And then, succumbing even further to impulse, I added a line at the end of my two-sentence letter that I really should not have written, but I was extra weak that day. And then I sent it.
I sat back in my chair and immediately started to go crazy. Will this person respond? I wondered. What would this person say in response? What if this person doesn't respond? If this person doesn't respond, is it because of anger, or because not to respond is the better thing to do? Why the hell did I even write that? That wasn't a good thing I did just now. It was manipulative. I've probably just further disqualified myself from something I might have had if I'd just held on, exercised some fucking self-control.

So you see, in sending the letter, I damned myself to insanity. That is, there was no possible outcome - response or no - which provided for anything other than insanity. This is why I think I'm addicted to it.

It's embarrassing. But I'm writing about it because I really do want to be free of it and because I suspect I'm not alone in it, and I have this conviction that freedom can't be reached alone, not in my experience, anyway, because we weren't made like that. We need more than our selves. We need each other. And we need to delete our facebooks.