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.]

Repost: Disappointing

Sometimes I imagine looking at myself from the eyes of another, in which case, of course, I wouldn’t be myself; I feel the disappointment of the other; I feel doubly disappointed, in fact, since I also feel my own disappointment at having disappointed another.

[Reposted with edits, here and on Instagram.]

Worlds

You close your eyes and you go to other worlds that don’t exist, worlds that once were, worlds that could have been, worlds that could be, and worlds that never could have been, that could never be; and sometimes, for those other worlds you see when you close your eyes, for those worlds that don’t exist, you ruin the world that does exist when you open your eyes.

[Posted on Instagram.]

An Interest

He's interesting, but he isn't that interesting, she would say. He isn't interesting enough, for example, for her to show him that he interests her. There are others, less interesting than he is, to be sure, who show her an interest, and she shows them an interest because they show her theirs. If he were to be interested, then she would be very interested; he would then be both interesting and interested, which would make him much more interesting. Paradoxically though, she realizes that part of her interest in him is his apparent lack of interest in her, which she finds intriguing. What could it be about him or about her, she wonders, that makes him so uninterested! He follows her online, so she knows that he does know her, or know of her at least, but not much more. For now, she can only try to make herself seem more interesting to him so that he can become interested, but she knows that by doing so she will also (or only?) attract the attention of those less interesting than he is, whose interest she is less interested in, though she would continue to entertain these interests, until he (or someone just as interesting, or more interesting even) shows her an interest. If he were to show her an interest, then she wouldn't hesitate to show him her interest, to show him and only him, but he hasn't shown her an interest, and interesting as he is, he isn't interesting enough for her to go out of her way to show him her interest when he hasn't shown her an interest, yet.


[Edited on 25-04-2023. Posted on Instagram.]

All about timing

She wanted to and she would have if she could have, she would have if he would have; he could have (because she wanted to and she would have), but he wouldn’t; but in another time he would have wanted to and he would have if he could have, he would have if she would have, if she had let him know that she would have, then he would have let her know that he would, and then maybe they would have.

[Edited on 12-03-2023. Posted on Instagram.]

Fantasies of Words

You have words on your mind, words you remember, words you remember having said and words you remember others saying to you, words they said of you; and you also have words you imagine, words you wish they said of you, words you wish you said and words you wish they said to you; you wish you thought of this word instead of the word you used, you think of how things would have turned out then; other than that you also have words you wish others would imagine, words you want them to wish they could say to you, words you want them to wish you would say to them, words you would not want said but you want them to be wished and imagined, you want others thinking as you think often, What if you said this, and then what if they said that, and what if I, what if you, what if they, and so you build your fantasies of words.

[Posted on Instagram. Edited after that on 12-04-2023]

Potential suffering

As she listened to him telling her what he'd done, asking her what he should do now, she reflected on what she had done and what she would have done had she been given the chance, how she would have ended up where he was now, wishing he could go back and change what he’d done, asking her if she saw a way out for him, assuming she would never do what he had done, not knowing that she had wanted to, that she would have if she could have; if she had been allowed to follow through, then she too would be suffering the consequences as he was suffering them now.

[Posted on Instagram.]

More Manifesto

Make something from what you lack. When uninspired, take your inspiration from your lack of inspiration. And if, like me, you doubt yourself, let your doubts be your muse.

[Posted on Instagram. Maybe I'll combine it later with the other Manifesto.]

Trying to Imagine

He tries to help me with what I'm going through by imagining what it would be like for him to go through what I'm going through. But this is different from imagining being me, going through what I'm going through. Which would be difficult for anyone to imagine. It would have been difficult even for me to imagine what it would be like for me, what I would be like, before going through what I'm going through. This means that even for him to imagine what it would be like for him to go through what I'm going through, now that he isn't going through it, would be difficult, let alone for him to imagine what it's like for me. So any advice he can think of only fits with what he imagines he would need, which is probably not the same as what he would really need, and which he also assumes is the same as what I would need, when going through what I'm going through.

[Finally wrote something! Posted on Instagram.]

Emotional

I'm writing from an emotional place because if I don't write from an emotional place I may speak from an emotional place, and if I speak from an emotional place I may say something I will later regret when I am less emotional and more thoughtful. Because right now, since I'm too emotional, my thinking cannot be as good as it is when I am not emotional or less emotional, but now that I'm emotional I'm trying to figure out why that is supposed to be a fact: that one can think better when one isn't feeling so much, that feeling comes at the expense of thought. But I guess I'm feeling too much to be able to see it clearly, and I have to have faith in those other times in which I do see it clearly, when I tell myself that I should always hold back on speaking until I am more reasonable, which I am clearly not right now.

[Wrote this in 2014. Minor edits. Posted on Instagram.] 

Torn

Torn. Torn apart. Families, people, grounds, buildings, houses, homes, histories, humanity, the soul. Bodies...bodies...bodies. Lives... They, we, you.

Nothing to say

I envy those who have something to say. I envy those who know something well enough to write about it while here I am writing only about my self and how I don’t know it. I have nothing to say except that I have nothing to say. All I can elaborate on is my lack of elaboration. My muse is my muteness. My silence my material.

[Posted on Instagram.]

Afraid

Afraid of being afraid, of being too afraid, of being unreasonably afraid, of being afraid for the wrong reasons, afraid of being afraid when I shouldn’t be afraid, of not being afraid when I should be afraid, of not being afraid enough to do the right thing, of being afraid enough but still not doing the right thing, afraid of not knowing what the right thing is, or confusing the wrong thing for the right thing and fighting for the wrong thing, afraid of not learning what I need to learn, afraid of learning and wishing I didn’t learn, afraid of being afraid of learning, afraid of reading, of not reading, afraid of writing, afraid of not writing, of not writing in time, of being misread, of being unread, of my words being used against me, afraid of the bad feelings of others, afraid of creating my own problems, making it all seem too big when it barely even was, afraid of giving meaning to the meaningless, of wasting my life being haunted by that which was never real, afraid of giving or following the wrong advice, afraid of mediocrity, of being paralyzed by my fear of mediocrity, afraid of listing my fears and being overwhelmed by them instead of overcoming them, afraid of discovering only pointlessness in the end.


[Posted on Instagram.]

Too Late

There was a time when you could but you wouldn’t. You wanted to and you could but you wouldn’t. Now you wish you could because you think you would if you could. But you don’t know, maybe you still wouldn’t. Even if you could, and even if you would, you wouldn’t look the same as you would have when you wouldn’t. You learn this but you don’t learn from this, and what you want to do now and you can do now you still wouldn’t, and there will come a time when you’ll wish you still could because you would if you could, or you’ll think you would if you could, but your history says you still wouldn’t.

[Edited on 08-02-2023. Posted on Instagram.]

You, Ghosts of My Imagination

Let me befriend the ghosts of my imagination. The mouthless faces that say nothing. The eyes that stare with no expressions. The loud whispers whose words I don’t hear. You whom I don’t know and therefore must imagine knowing. You and what I project on you, the not-you that only I see in my head; not-you and I, friends at last.

[On Instagram.]

The non-existent

To mourn that which never existed. That which never could have existed! To mourn that which could have existed but never did. (But maybe that which never existed could never have existed?) To mourn that which we thought could have existed, that which we thought should have existed...And that which did exist, but barely, never enough...

[Can I turn this thought into a story/narrative?]

Thoughts to Stories

I wrote how one of the things I write in my notes which can turn to stories is my thoughts. Thoughts can be developed into stories and they sound better as a result. I write down my thoughts first, that's the purpose of our note-taking, and they would take the form of: "I think", or "I thought", or "I wonder", and all such similar forms, but these don't convey the idea as aesthetically as placing a character into an incident. 

One good example of this is the Jigsaw piece, which started off as a note about how "we are like jigsaw pieces." I shared it with someone who said it needed more work, and I rewrote it in the form of a narrative in which I woke up as a Jigsaw piece. 
Same thing happened with the piece I posted yesterday, The Past Self. In my notebook where I started writing about it first, I began with: "A thought occurred to me..." Then I wrote it in my email drafts later beginning with "If I could go back in time . . ." Finally, after someone told me it still needs work, I rewrote it as a second person narrative, in which it does happen to someone. 
And so it goes, it starts off as a thought, you make it a narrative and it doesn't matter if it's about I/he/she/you. You don't even have to agree with the conclusion of the narrator, as long as the story itself is coherent, and has its own aesthetic.

These are two examples which I consider successful, whereas others are still there waiting for more work to be done on them. 

The Past Self

You go back in time. You meet your past self and you tell your past self to do things a bit differently. Not too differently, you say, because you don't want your present to be too different. But does your past self do things differently? Your past self goes on to do only what you have already done, what the moments made you do; your past self justifies doing so by thinking that you don't really know what would happen if you hadn't done what you had done in your past, if you had done more, or if you'd done less; and your past self would be right in thinking so. You realize then, how you are not as autonomous as you previously thought, and perhaps you are compelled to do what you do exactly as you do it, never more, and never less.

[Posted on Instagram.]

His World

He lashed at the world. He lashed at the world while thinking he was lashing back at the world. He thought the world was attacking him, but the world was the world. The world didn't care about him. The world was too big to care. But he lived in a world of his making, an imagined world of his making that was the only world in which he was the center, the only world in which everything was about him and everything else was purposely excluding him.

[Edited 25-1-2023]

The World of an I

I in my world do not see the world in another I belonging to someone else, and all the other worlds that will not stop for me, and every other world in every other I that doesn’t know about the world of my I, which doesn’t stop for them.

Between the Hate

Between the hate they each thought the other felt, which they only felt at times because they thought it’s what the other felt, the hate they felt they had to feel because it was “what the other felt”, were other feelings they wouldn't admit to feeling, that came from their true and better natures, unaffected by what they thought the other felt.

[Posted on Instagram.]

Who noticed first?

When he noticed her, she noticed him noticing her. She had noticed him before, but he hadn't noticed her when she noticed him. Now that he noticed her and she noticed him she made sure he noticed that she noticed. She liked that it now seemed as if he had noticed her first and only then did she notice him. Actually, he had noticed her before too, before he decided it wouldn't matter if she noticed him noticing her; he had quietly observed her, as it turned out she had done too. All that was left was to acknowledge who noticed the other first, or to make the claim at least.

[Wanted to add more details to make it clear that this is about strangers and first moves, but I don't know how to do it without interrupting the flow and ruining the minimalism. Maybe I'll think of a way later. Posted on Instagram.]

On Forgiveness

To write your way to forgiveness. To read your way to forgiveness. Oh for a forgiveness of others that comes as easily as self-forgiveness! To forgive blindly, never knowing how your forgiveness will be received, or whether it’ll be known at all.
To forgive is to let go, to let go is to heal. To forgive, even though your forgiveness itself may be misconstrued, may be unforgiven; to forgive even those who lack forgiveness; to forgive the unforgiving too.

On Notes

After I wrote in my notebook about different ways to come up with stories and ended that with "make a story from a note", I wanted the next bit to be about what to write in my notes. But I wasn't getting the time and eventually just wrote other notes instead. I figure I can write it here for now, which I may write later in my notebook:

 - Write a sentence, all that is required of the sentence is for it to be a good sentence, it doesn't have to be anything else. It doesn't have to be true, wise, anything other than a good sentence. 

 - Write down an image. Any image that spoke to you, and that you want to think about later. The writing of the image in your notes doesn't have to be good for you to write it down, since you can always work on it later. 

- The plot for a story.

- The beginning of a story.

- Any part of a story that comes to you.

- Your thoughts, or parts of your thoughts. I say parts of your thoughts because sometimes the thought may be incomplete in your head until you write it down, so you may avoid writing it down because it's incomplete, but writing may be the process you need to complete it. (Although sometimes, by the time I write down part of a thought, I find I've forgotten even parts I had thought of...)

- Your beliefs, views, opinions. 

- Rewrite different versions of previous notes.

Some of these are obvious, I'm just trying to make a full list, though I know I'm probably missing out on things I write in my notebook, or also in my notes, in my email drafts. I write these down when they come to me, and then when the time to write a story comes, I have all these notes to work on, and sometimes that's what happens. You can of course also combine different notes or the outcomes of them into one story/piece.

On Not Knowing

You want to know because you are under the illusion that knowing will give you some control, that not knowing will be like losing all control, but then you come to know and you simply lose more control than you had when you didn’t know. You want to know because you’re not indifferent to what it is you want to know. The desire to know leaves you under the control of another. You can liberate yourself only by not wanting to know. Perhaps not knowing can be your way of having control. To intentionally not know; to be in control of your not knowing. Seek to not know and delight in your not knowing.

[Posted on Instagram.]

I looked at my ego, and how ugly it is to look at one’s ego. I saw the nature of humankind, I saw in my ego a mirror of every other ego. (Looking at my ego is as ugly as looking at my handwriting.)

[Old handwritten notes of mine from 2015 which I found recently.]

Writing exercises

Or how to come up with ideas for stories:

• A story (sometimes they just appear) 
• The story of the making of a story
• The story of the impact of a story
• Rewrite older stories, change gender, perspectives, etc. (Since the point is universal)
• The story of how a story never was
• Make a story from a quote, even if it’s yours
• Make a story from a note

(From my notebook)

Jet lag has me waking up in the middle of the night and thinking of what I'd like to write the next day but also knowing I'll forget when I do wake up. I don't get up to write it down because I have hopes of falling back asleep. Though I do remember now, that as I was reflecting about some real world problems, I remembered a beautiful sentence and I reflected on what a luxury it would be to spend one's life thinking only of the beauty of beautiful sentences.

On Imagination

I’m a slave of my imagination, and I wonder if everyone else is the same, or if it’s only me and maybe others like me who overfed their imaginations until they grew to monstrous proportions and took control. I suffer because I live not in the moment in which nothing is truly happening, but in imagined moments in which I suffer. I suffer because I imagine myself suffering. And I cannot help suffering from my imagined suffering, because I’m a slave of my imagination. I am punished and on trial, and my crime is my imagination, and my punisher and my punishment are my imagination too.

[Edited on 9-1-2023. On Instagram.]