Comments on: Carving out a place…

By: enola

enola — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:28:22 +0000

“What the fuck made me think that it was my responsibility to fix whatever anybody else’s fucked up reactions were? How did I absorb everybody else’s fucked up projections until I ended up here, with nothing left of my own.”

I once heard someone say “I tried so hard to become what everyone else wanted that I forgot to be who I was.” I think many of us are like that. I know I am.

By: cerebralmum

cerebralmum — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:11:39 +0000

It did help.

By: Henson Ray

Henson Ray — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:43:18 +0000

This reminds me of an exercise in “The Artist’s Way” called “three pages.” Every morning you get up and write three pages of whatever is in your mind. It doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t have to be fun to read. But it gets all that junk out of your head so you can have a healthy and productive day. I’m sure all the thoughts you wrote here are pretty universal, so you shouldn’t be embarrassed about writing them down. Hope it helped.

http://www.ithappenedinplainfield.com

By: cerebralmum

cerebralmum — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 12:54:23 +0000

Hmm. I don’t think that there is an inner self, in the sense of Plato and essence, but I do think there are parts of ourselves we do not look upon. The way we censor ourselves does reveal ourselves, but does it always reveal ourselves to us? When is it a creative act and when is it an act of Bad Faith, or wilful ignorance? There is some real effort required to give ourselves a choice of clothing.

As much as we are social animals, I think that we are historical animals. We are bounded by time, and time creates narrative. I think most people who write, whether privately or publicly, begin with the youthful idea that Truth can somehow be gotten to, and end with the idea that that nothing is true. Still, the journey expands the narrative. For those few writers who remain, their capacity to expand us continues after they have stopped. And isn’t living and writing essentially the same thing?

By: Stewart

Stewart — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 11:42:59 +0000

I used to write huge long screeds of ‘automatic writing’ on a daily basis, filling whole foolscap pages with wall to wall tiny writing. Not as angry or hurt as this though. More trivial, or rather bemused about the world and myself. The thing is, it’s not automatic writing at all, it’s still dressed to impress no matter how fast you throw it down, which doesn’t make it false at all, because I think we’re social beings through and through, and the ínner self is just a myth, methinks. The way you censor yourself reveals yourself, even creates yourself. I could go on, but I’ll stop there.
Anyway, life goes on. At least, until it stops.

By: cerebralmum

cerebralmum — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 04:41:54 +0000

Hey Vianne – it’s nice to see you. I hope you’re doing okay and finding some space of your own too. You’re in my thoughts.

By: Vianne

Vianne — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 04:23:34 +0000

Thank you for being real.

By: cerebralmum

cerebralmum — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 00:26:58 +0000

You know, I just re-read this, and it doesn’t even seem that nasty or self-pitying. God, how much I must censor myself.

By: Mary Joan Koch

Mary Joan Koch — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 00:10:57 +0000

I greatly admire your posting this. I have always hidden feeling this way in my journal, which no one reads and I eventually trash. You give me the courage to try to be more honest in my own blog.