Of Blogs, Writings, and Social Media Fasts

 Two years of no updates here. 

Things took a turn after October of that year. I wanted to educate myself on Palestine, and so I read one book after the other for 15 months before I finally started to read some fiction again and non-related non-fiction books. I also started submitting some of my pieces to online magazines since August 2024, all of which have been rejected so far. I thought of starting a blog, Diaries of A Rejected Writer.

But I guess I might as well just return to this one. The problem I found with some online journals is that some of them won't even accept previously posted pieces on personal websites, which limited what I could share with them, and which also makes me hesitate about posting writings here. 

How to determine what to do with each writing? I don't know yet. 
Also, I deleted my social media apps and went through a social media fast for three weeks of Ramadhan, and I liked it. It was an impulsive decision without a plan, I figured I'd do it for a day or two then check in on my laptop, but it stretched out until Eid, at which point I downloaded the apps again. But I felt how exhausting it was, I described it as putting my mind through a marathon. So I deleted them again at the beginning of this work week, only checking in later in the evening on my laptop using the browser. I think I may do this on weekdays, allowing myself back on weekends. Or something. It's not a rigid plan so we'll see.

Fear of writing

Yesterday, I suddenly wondered if I did not want to write a long book because it would be too revealing to me, because it would involve too much looking into myself, too much insight. I had not even thought I was avoiding writing a novel, I had thought I was simply delaying it. In a single moment of epiphany, I learned that I (may) have been avoiding what I didn't know I was avoiding as well as why I (may) have been avoiding it. I also learned, and perhaps this was the thought that revealed the other thoughts, that writing was a form of vision, that I wrote to see, and therefore when I did not want to see, then I could not write.

How we would be

We would wonder, we would hesitate, we would think about what words to use, and after, we would imagine having used different words, all the different ones we could have used. We would joke to impress, to show how witty we could be, we would laugh to show how we appreciate good humor and to encourage more conversation. We would talk and talk, we would not sleep, we would share, we would comfort, we would connect. We would be inviting without inviting, until the time to invite would come. We would want more, we would want to meet, we would meet. We would wonder, we would hesitate, we would meditate, we would finally come together, we would come together to learn, to learn of each other, learn of our selves and of each other's selves, and the having of a self which we share, we would bare the self, examine the self, examine each other in the spirit of examining the self, see ourselves in the reflection of each other, we would justify ourselves in lofty words, we would examine our justifications, we would lay them bare, we would accept them as mere justifications, we would accept ourselves for wanting what we want. We would read a book together to read each other to read ourselves, we would use the book as a prop, the book as an excuse to read each other. We would leave behind the selves we were before the book, before the moment. We would make a memory of a moment with a book, with ourselves being ourselves, learning, revealing, discovering. We would remember this moment, we would think about this memory, we would wish it were different, we would wish the memory would be better, we would wish we could relive the moment. We would start to forget what it was like, we would forget, we would think of other moments, we would forget again, we would live in other moments, we would remember, we would forget again.

[Posted on Instagram.]

His Descent into Madness

At first, he started talking to himself. He was trying to talk to others around him, but since they didn’t appear to hear him he went on talking to himself. Then he tried to talk to them about talking to himself, but they still didn’t seem to hear him, so he talked to himself about talking to himself. Occasionally the others would hear him. Though they heard him talking to himself, a sense of propriety stopped them from indicating to him that they heard him, they didn’t want him to be embarrassed having been heard talking to himself. So they pretended not to hear him; and he, believing that they didn’t hear him, went on talking to himself though he had been trying to talk to them all along.

When a non-writer writes

I am not a writer. I am a non-writer who writes. Since I am a non-writer, any writing I do is a non-thing. Any time I spend writing, or reading to learn more writing, is time better spent “doing something”. If I were a writer, then time spent writing would be doing something, since the something I do would be writing.
Maybe if I become a writer, then time I spend reading, to learn more about writing, would still be time better spent doing something, like writing, since I would be a writer after all; I would be a writer so I would have to spend my time writing, not reading, since I wouldn’t be a reader, and reading wouldn’t be the something that I do.

[Posted on Instagram.]

Revolt of the Sentences

The image translates itself into a sentence. In this case, the image is that of a woman strolling with a baby not her own. The sentence grows, feeding itself that which was not in the image. The sentence continues to stroll, because the sentence likes the sound of “strolling.” The sentence has a logic of its own. The sentence likes to be free, not tying its existence to that of the image. The sentence becomes about sentences gaining their independence, a revolt against images. The image of a woman strolling with a baby not her own is now portrayed as a metaphor for a tyrant, having taken that which does not belong to her. The sentence, which began as one about art, is now political. Perhaps this is what they mean when they say that all art is political. I will stop now, because I don’t want to know what the sentences would do, if they have their way, to the woman strolling with a baby not her own.

Misread Silences

When I say something to him, I have to remind myself to make sure he hasn't misunderstood, as he has done before. This is easy, since all I have to do is ask him to explain what I said back to me. But then there are other times when he misunderstands my silence as well, and this is more difficult to rectify, especially when I do not know what he is imagining me to be feeling. On the occasions in which he does share his impressions, I am often surprised by the contrast between the truth and what he thinks is the truth; while I am indifferently lost in my daydreams, he imagines some great emotional impact caused by the news he has relayed to me, as if I am visibly shaken, when the truth is I could not care any less. I’m glad when he shares his impressions so that I can dispel them, although I also wonder if he believes me or if he pretends to believe me while he sticks to his initial intuitions. This is not a problem I see only in him, I see it all around in even the most intelligent of people, and all of this leads me to always, as a matter of principle, question my own judgments; to doubt, to hesitate, to wonder how much I too project on others what is entirely my own.

Her Story

She wanted to tell him her story. Maybe if she told him her story, then he could write about her story. She could then read what he wrote and be pleased, instead of thinking about her story by herself and feeling sad. If he were to write her story, and if others were to read and like his story, then they would be reading and liking her story, and she would feel heard. She could then share her story by sharing his story, and whatever positive comments he would get on his story would really be about her story. If the story were to get negative views, however, then she could tell herself that these were about his story, about his writing, rather than about her and the story she knew in her head.

[Posted on Instagram.]

Repost: Lost

He talked to her about those he considered to be lost. He talked about what it meant to be lost as if there was only one way to be lost. He talked about it from the perspective of an outsider, and she pretended to be an outsider too. If she were to tell him that she was an insider, that she, like them, was also lost, this would only fill him with a sense of loss which he wouldn't know how to cope with; he wouldn't deal with being lost as she does. Just because she was lost, or felt lost, or would be considered by others to be lost, didn't mean she wanted others to be in the same position she was in. She carried the weight of being lost by herself, in secret, screaming with him and the crowds so they wouldn't know she wasn't one of them, for her sake, and for their sake too.

[Almost gave up on ever making this piece any good, but now I think it's more bearable. Edited on 10-05-2023.]

The Biographical Reader

He was what she called a biographical type of reader. He searched for her in her writings, and he searched for himself. Every “he” seemed to him like it was about himself and every “she” was about her. He didn’t know that she, anticipating this kind of reader, regularly switched genders in her writings. So when he was reading about “him” thinking it was about himself it was more likely to be about her, and when he was reading about her thinking it was about herself it was more possible that he was reading about himself. In keeping with that, we would be better off reading this particular piece to be about her misreading herself into his words, thinking he was writing about her when he was writing about himself or some other him, and thinking he was writing about himself when he could be writing about her or some other “she.”

[Posted on Instagram.]

Balance of people

Here there were too many people, and so I didn’t want to go in. There I didn’t go in because there were not enough people, and hence no life. There had to be balance. I don’t know how they’re supposed to cater to people like me. Are they supposed to let just enough people for the place not to be dead, and then not let any more in? But then if such a place did have just enough people not to be dead, and I wanted to enter, they wouldn’t let me in, and I would have to wait, but then if someone were to leave, therefore opening space for me to enter, then the place would no longer have enough people not to be dead, and so I’d be back where I started, still not wanting to go in.

[An introvert’s day at the mall. Posted on Instagram.]

Fantasies of fantasies

She wanted him to imagine her, but only after she had started to imagine him. She didn't want him to have imagined her before she had imagined him. But she also didn't want to imagine him before he imagined her, because she didn't want to be the first to imagine. Though she had imagined him already, without knowing if he had imagined her too. Somehow it didn't seem to her that he would mind her imagining him without him having imagined her first. Now if she could get him to imagine her, she wouldn't let him know that she had imagined him already, and it would seem to him like he imagined her first, and that she had let him imagine her, that she imagined him only after he had imagined her, after she had allowed him to imagine her, after he wanted her to imagine him just as he imagined her too.

[Wrote this a while ago and forgot about it. Missing something still.]

Impulses

He doesn’t want her to respond, if he’s being honest. But if he’s being more honest, he does want her to want to respond. He wants her to feel the impulse to respond, but he doesn’t want to deal with the consequences of her response. If she doesn’t feel the impulse to respond, maybe that could say something bad about him, and it doesn’t say anything about her. If she feels the impulse and she does respond, then that could say something good about him, and maybe something bad about her. But if she feels the impulse to respond, but resists herself and does not respond, then that could say something good about her, and something good about him too.

[Posted on Instagram.]

More

He sometimes wishes he had done more. But he realizes too, that if he had done more, he would have regretted doing more. He also realizes that, even if he had done more, there would still be more that he wouldn’t have done, and so he still would have, sometimes, wished he had done more.
She too wishes at times that he had done more. Most of the time, she is thankful, like him, that he hadn't done more, because there’s less for her to regret since he hadn't done more. But she sometimes wishes he had done more, for the same reasons he sometimes wishes he had done more, but other times, she wishes he had done more for different reasons; she thinks to herself, If he had done more, she would have had more reasons to blame him, she’d have felt more justified in hating him, she wouldn’t have wondered if anything was her fault; she wouldn't be wishing he had done more, and she wouldn’t think herself mad for still wishing he had done more.

[Edited on 26-04-2023. Posted on Instagram.]

Knowing Again and Again

I know what I know now, and I know I didn’t always know what I know now, and I know I don’t know some of what I once did know, and I will one day not know some of what I do know now, and maybe someday I will come to know what I once did know, maybe what I do know now but won't know then, like the meaning of a word, and not knowing that I did once know this word, I will think it is my first time knowing it, and maybe I will again forget it at some point, but maybe if I come to know it after that, I will at least remember this time that I did once know what it meant, even if I won’t remember that I knew it more than once before.

[Edited on 27-04-2023. Posted on Instagram.]