I am exhausted by a concern that my words are being read.
“Concerned that my words are being read” is like saying “concerned that my legs are supporting my body weight”.
I do not write things I would not say to others. In some cases, I have censored myself, but even then, I would say what I censored to others. I do not pull much from my imagination—I am not very imaginative; I record my experiences. I have no reason to feel ashamed. I don’t feel ashamed.
History
In my undergraduate degree, I took a class in creative writing. I hated the idea of an audience—a phantom that I was supposed to dance around. The audience is sensitive. The audience is judgemental. The audience is why one writes.
I concluded I do not want to write or publish, because I do not care about an audience. I continued to move my hand in my notebooks and draft little narratives here and there. I hesitate to classify this as “writing”.
Also in my undergraduate degree, I took a class on literary criticism. During the lecture on Barthes’ death of the author (or perhaps Levi-Strauss), a peer posited that all writing is social as it’s meant to be read. I didn’t say anything, but I disagreed.
Bloodletting
To write is to manicure words for an audience. It’s like any other art—the phantom of the audience is at the very core of the writer’s craft. In this respect, I agree with my peer.
Written language is a technology. Technology gives me more limbs. Technology does not have a singular use.
The optimal use of the written language is communication—either bureaucratic or creative. In this configuration, the outcome of written language is some sort of productivity. Hence: writing has a strong relation to socioeconomic systems. I do not like this.
Bloodletting is draining blood from something to cure it of illness and disease. I suggest that for me, to write is a form of bloodletting. Spiritual cleansing is not productive. Restoration is not creation.
An exhaust of energy
Any substance in excess is a poison. I have an abundance of metaphysical energy in me. I call this albertine. I call this god. I call this an angel. I call this emergence. If it does not leave me, it is a poison.
Energy in motion emits light. I have a light in me that blinds me due to its velocity and density. If it has nowhere to go, I circle around, subordinate to my energy. This is disappointment.
I want to clarify that I do not cast value on the idea of light. Sunlight has no value or meaning. I write “I have a light in me”. I see there is sunlight. These are categorically identical.
To write is to pull light from me and disperse it in space. I empty myself. I scrape out all of my noise—unoriginal, uninteresting, ubiquitous noise, like the din of a city from a window at night.
How could I attach financial ends to this? First, it’s strange to sell what feels like waste. Second, to dirty spiritual processes with the grease of finance must be a sin of some sort.
Melodrama
In The Need for Roots, Simone Weil writes:
Melodrama reflects this popular state of feeling. Why it happens to be such a dreadful literary form would be worth while taking the trouble to examine. But far from being a false form of expression, it is very close, in a certain sense, to reality.
I am confused that Weil did not dive deeper on melodrama, as the logic flows simply. Melodrama strikes me as skeletal. I do not observe many people entranced by their limbs. I suggest this is because limbs are self-evident. Melodrama is self-evident.
To remark upon the self-evident is unremarkable. Unremarkable remarks are taboo. This presupposes that everyone agrees upon what constitutes ‘unremarkable’.
I do not think my limbs are self-evident. My arm, for example, is not two pieces of bone—it is a system of muscle, bone, veins, cartilage, nerves, skin, and likely more. Science tells me that very few things are self-evident.
I do not think melodrama is self-evident.
An angel in the dark. A melodramatic phrase. Far from a false expression, it is very close to reality. I called albertine an angel in the dark. I write a scene. Me on a balcony with a cigarette. Melodramatic. Far from a false expression, it is very close to reality.
I read this. I skin my words and look at the organs of my thought. I see the truth I poke at. I have completed my job. I have nothing further to say. I am my audience. To anyone else, this is an unremarkable remark. This is useless garbage.
I expose my melodrama so I might understand myself. I am a ubiquitous, unremarkable thing, but I am central to my existence.
Cycles
Camus says Dostoevsky writes his characters as an exploration of his own existence. I think “I can do that”. I begin a meditation on dampness.
Simone Weil writes essays which clarify god. I think “I can do that”. I write the gumgum galaxy.
Iris Murdoch writes novels that mask philosophical exploration. I think “I can do that”. I note ideas down and organize them under the title “to hold a pocket bell”.
Sylvia Plath writes and draws her suffering out. I think “I can do that”. I write a couple of short stories.
I am placed in diametric opposition to the author. I am the audience. Diametric opposition dictates a necessary connection; otherwise, it would not have a diameter. When I read books, I am the audience as I am the author. This is the strange feature of reading—I have been led to believe that I have not written these books, but when I read I write the words again in my head. Therefore, I have written the version of the book that I have read.
In the above cases, I think “maybe I will write a novel”. Certainly, To Hold a Pocket Bell has an allure to me. It seems more intentional. Note the transition—from quotations to italics. The parasite of authorship wiggles around my brain and it eats away at my inspiration. Suddenly, my sense of oneness is gone. If I am to write a novel, I am not my audience. This is categorically incorrect.
I lose interest in novels. Fiction is illusory, and meaningless if one discards the idea of the audience as separate from the author. I arrive back at these terminal little essays. I get nowhere.
Solipsism
If I am to write anything, I must be my audience. Hence, anything I write must appeal only to me. I struggle to see a world where this leads me to anything other than solipsism.
I read once (I think in Paglia) that the artist taps into their humanity and pulls out only what’s common, and shows it to their audience. Their audience is themselves, but since they pull something so common, anyone can receive their creation and recognize something inside of it. I imagine this is why I dismiss the split between author and audience. To accomplish this, one must have clarity and awareness of themselves and the people who constitute their concept of reality.
In other words, they must know themselves, as through that knowledge, they know everyone. Only with these two halves can one reach any sort of clear idea of what’s common. This is why melodrama has such an odd significance: it is an emanation of the eternal.
I do not understand myself. I don’t know who I talk to, or why I talk to them. I don’t know why I have voices that seek to rip me apart. The density of my thought approaches such a saturation that I sometimes cannot even begin to detangle what I’m thinking. I obsess over reading myself as a text and trying to conduct a sort of literary analysis. I just want clarity.
I don’t know if I have clarity. I don’t know if I’m confused. Either could be true, or maybe both. In any case, I want to be alone with my thoughts. I want to capture those thoughts so I may critique them.
I am not an author—I will never reach the success that I had dreamed about in my youth. That dream was not mine. It was implanted in me. I just want to sit in the quiet and think to myself.