I’m tired of doubting myself. Tired of wondering if I’ve crossed the line on the latest post I’ve put up on Dark Sport.
I recently wrote a post about abandoning poor friends because they live in a different world. I said let the poor die. I have been experiencing horrible gnawing doubts about whether I should have written this.
The big problem is that I want to be accepted by the New York City literary community, and I find myself already adjusting my being — horrendously — to their imaginary requirements. This means that I keep deleting anti-women posts, among other things. At times I want to throw up my hands and just start my own publishing house, but do you know how much time and work that takes, especially when you have limited financial resources?
If I was a successful, established author with a fat bank account, that would be one thing. I could start a business much more easily if that’s the route I want to pursue. But I am not. I am hemorrhaging money from my savings as we speak.
*feeling shitty* I just don’t know what to do. I feel as if I should go back with a fine comb and delete about 40% of my posts. But I don’t want to! I like those writings!
The pain of being an outsider for so long is getting to me. I’m desperate to be part of a larger social setting, a group — in any capacity, even that of waterboy. I’m alone, friendless in this world. All my past “friends” were shallow versions of such, and they’ve drifted away. I’ve had maybe 6 “friends” in my life. None of them counted as a real friend. They were more acquaintances I hung around with.
I also feel as if I’m letting the viewer down by going on about self-absorbed, self-indulgent crises like this. Who cares if I want to censor myself? What does it matter to you? I am keenly attuned to the audience’s existence and its needs.
But this is important to me. I have few enough readers as it is — for a while I had relatively good traffic for a small site like this one, but that’s now shrunk to the bare minimum. I had a theory that the world is going through an “incurious” phase where new explorations are kept to a minimum. The last several days I’ve seen only one or two visitors to my site through WordPress Reader. Then it jumped to eight. If there is a drought, could it be over finally, at long last? (I have more regular readers than this, at least. The WordPress Reader is a device for other bloggers to check you out by searching. But regular viewers are a different kettle of fish. I do better on this metric.)
Maybe I’m not cut out to live in this world. Maybe I should be more of a sheep like the VAST majority of human beings are. They’re content with chewing the grass placidly and imitating each other slavishly. My leadership qualities and my inner strength may be betraying me. Perhaps I would do better if I somehow suppressed these qualities. Only, I don’t know how. How does one stop thinking deviant thoughts that are independent of the sheeple, the common masses? How does one bow down before the god of Society and say honest things only when they garner applause?
The trickiness of such maneuvering — pruning oneself to be the ideal mental form — is beyond belief. I am reminded of a politician’s life. To want to lead and yet to be under the dominant societal paradigm is a tension that cannot be relieved.
I want to succeed and I have the brains to make necessary adjustments to do so.
The question is, should I?
I think it is unwise to tamper with one’s core being, no matter what the reason, not even for ostensible survival. I understand my shitty feelings and my lingering doubt but these stem from an efficiency-maximizing algorithm that is constantly running in my brain. I am defending myself against future criticism by acting now.
I really think, though, that I would be happier starting my own business. For one thing, I could write exactly as I want, without regard for the editor’s harsh eagle eye. For another, I could scoop the majority of the profits to my own chest, rather than being financially exploited by the publishing house. Also, maybe I could start a kind of society based on corporativist principles.
This world is deformed. *writing after a pause* There are men and women running loose who are like wild dogs. They attack unthinkingly and have the power to sink you, if no other power at all, certainly not a creative power. I am reminded of Roosh V who got savaged by the media for a tepid “pro-rape” article that he said was satire. The newspapers that noticed — and most didn’t, it is true — jumped up and down on his throat in their quest to expunge the BadTalk.
It must be nice to be a girl. There, you have no inner demons to battle. Your inner landscape is quiet, all the time. You’re like an airheaded drone sailing through life.
No wonder so many men hunger to be female. The pressures of being male are enormous. Female living, by comparison, is living by the cabana with a pina colada drink in one’s hand.
*sharp intaken breath* There. As always, I feel better communicating what I wanted to say. As long as ONE person reads this, I’ll feel as if I’ve made some kind of connection, established some kind of tenuous bond out there in the ether. It’s not hard to see how blogging can become addictive. It offers so much more than regular writing. You hunger to have more viewers, more *smiling wanly* and this interferes with the regular processes of writing…
Dark Sport 
Always wonder if someone’s writing sucks, or if writing in English itself sucks. Do yourself a favor and never use “societal paradigm” or these cutesy action asterisks again.
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I like my asterixes. *shrug* They tell a lot about the writer’s mood, in a compact, compressed way.
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I’ve mentioned this before in another one of your posts, but I think it’s worth repeating: anything can be portrayed. Literally anything. But everything depends on the framing.
It’s not the subject itself that determines whether something “crosses the line,” but the tone, the intent, the gesture. A line delivered through cruelty or contempt will feel violent. The same line, reimagined with irony, vulnerability, or poetic detachment, can feel revelatory.
Framing is everything. It’s not censorship to say that some framings fall flat; it’s just awareness of language as action. And you’re a writer: you know tone is everything. It exposes more about the speaker than about the world.
That said, maybe the deeper issue is that there’s nothing that actually needs to be said. And maybe that’s okay.
Art doesn’t always need a point. Existence doesn’t always need a justification. Sometimes just showing up to write, to exist, to burn a little on the page… that’s enough.
It reminds me of something from Paulo Leminski, a poet from Curitiba, whom I always mention on my own blog from time to time. He coined a term: “inutensílio” — a blend of “inútil” (useless) and “utensílio” (tool). A poetic object that is useful precisely because it is useless.
That’s what poetry and fiction and writing often is: a rebellion against the need to “serve” or “justify” anything. A space where meaning isn’t imposed, but evaporates, or echoes, or flickers.
Maybe some of the pressure you’re feeling, to be right, to be accepted, to be understood, comes from this idea that your work must have a function, or a clear position. But maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it just has to be a noise’ a precise, ambiguous, beautiful, angry, human noise.
But you’re a writer. And that means that you have tools. Use them.
You say “it must be nice to be a woman.” Then go further. What would it really be like? Don’t just project your pain onto the idea. Actually step into her body, her memory, her fear, her invisibility, her pressure. Really try imagine it. Let that imagining of her change you as well.
You don’t have to stop writing “those things”; you just have to know who is speaking, and why. As a writer, you’re not limited to your own voice. You can create new voices. You can build masks. You can turn the gaze inward or outward.
That’s what I try to do in my poems, my stories, my weird, fragmented fever texts. I don’t write to be right. I write to imagine. To stretch. To disturb and to be disturbed. And the work that stays with people is usually the work that dares to do that.
So write what you want. Write it all. Write contradictions, filth, cruelty, tenderness. But frame it. Build it. Make it hold and stand for itself, you know what I mean?
Because once it holds, once it has structure, perspective, and inner necessity, then anything goes.
That’s what art is for.
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I think I know what you’re saying. But I’m under pressure to do everything right. The literary agents and editors of New York have far more in common with your worldview than with mine. I am the outlier in this case. It makes me paranoid about what I write, assuming that someone in New York is going to read it one day and judge me. I’m just trying to do everything right. I don’t want to miss a step.
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I don’t think most editors in New York would actually share my worldview. I might sound like a liberal to you, but I come from a different place, with different values, and maybe even more radical critiques.
Honestly, I’m still unsure what you really believe. I keep wondering if your tone is ironic or sincere, not in this specific post and conversations, but in other moments (you know what are them). Ambiguity can be powerful, but also confusing when it’s not clearly framed. Without a clear framing, some of the ideas can come across as deeply troubling, and I truly hope they’re not what you stand for.
But more importantly, you shouldn’t be writing for the imaginary expectations of NYC editors. If you do that, you’ll just erase what makes your voice yours.
Write from what you truly believe, whatever that is. That’s the only way it becomes anything at all, be it art, or a philosophical or political article, etc.
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