word vomit, and nothing but the best for you

I haven't written anything in a while, and I guess I kinda feel obligated. I'm working on a Hillary/Obama/Edwards rant for Ian's presidential whatever blogthing, and I'm probably going to post it up here.

But not now.

For now, I have a question, and it has to do with the philosophy and psychology of blogging itself. Did what I say to Ian (that is, "one blogs because one has something interesting and important to say") really hold any weight? What's the point? Because god knows that none of us are going to post journal entries and leave them totally public. But there comes a time in the week, the month, where you have a revelation, and it's so good you want to quote yourself, it's so good you hear your friends telling you they've already heard this story, they've already read it in your away message for the last 4 days straight, that yeah they agree, but really...

So? Do you have to have something to say?

That's what I thought. I always thought that writing was an inherently narcisstic practice - one must be so insanely pompous to think that what he or she writes is good enough to be written down, to be read, to be treasured by generations to come, blah blah blah... which is what I never really understood about myself, to be honest. I love writing, but god help me if I've ever thought that I was worthy of "through the generations." I just like to write.

I like the way the cursor moves across the page. I like the way that cheap ball point pen feels between my fingers, the struggle 6 months later to read the scribble, the wrinkled eyebrows and quirky half-smiles that come in response to whatever philosophical or personal crap I've holed away in a 5 year old spiral notebook that's covered in computer printouts and sticky notes and bad handwriting. But that writing, the writing that I really love... that writing is what no one reads. That writing is why I've considered memoir in a more serious way than I ever considered fiction. I don't have to strain myself wondering how to make a certain character more believable in his thoughts, words, actions, feelings. The struggle of memoir is to find a word, a phrase, a sentence, a creative and clear way to string them together - an accurate description of your mind.

No. An accurate description of my mind. And that's all that matters here. I like seeing what I feel on paper, I like the burn when I do something bad and the warmth when I do something good. I like seeing words like "love" and "touched" and all those dirty little quotes you can't believe you remember because life is such a blur anyway, all those words that you can't say to anyone but yourself. There's nothing better than this conversation with yourself, when you sit down and you say, this is what it is, it is what it is, there is no point in trying to change anything, so let's just write the bugger out and see where it goes from there. And you paperclip photos on there, like it's your journal, like it's something personal that no one is ever going to read, you paperclip these photos and memories and tears to the pages like it's your own brain... pretend there's no agent, no editor, no audience, pretend your mother will never read it, your exboyfriends, your best friend... there's no one there but you and you've got to make you happy, because if you don't do that, where will you be? You can lie to everyone but yourself and that's the point of it. I have so many secrets, there are days I want to climb onto my roof and scream, I want to send emails to everyone I've ever met, I want to call my grandmother, I want to shock and please and amuse and bewilder everyone around me, because if you can't do that, where will you be? There are days when I want to reveal my past to those around me just because I want to see the looks on their faces. I want someone to know.

But, at the same time of course, you shake your head and clear these thoughts, and think to yourself, dear god, what if everyone did find out? Would you ever be able to show your face in public? How many friends would you lose? How many tears would your mother cry?

The real question is this: would you be able to forgive yourself for sharing every loss of innocence, every personal moment, every stolen glance and touch and kiss, every slip of anger, every word, every thought, every single word? And maybe you would lose friends, or make your mother cry, but none of that matters in the face of the total excavation of your brain and innermost thoughts and memories and pain and laughter and everything. You can't give it up; that's the point of the brain. Maybe there are things we don't remember, but maybe they're just things that have been stowed away for later, things that as we are dying we can look back on, the good, the bad, and we can say to ourselves:

Yes. I lived.