Like Why I Blog? - Pablo Morales...
The real reason I write is to find the person I've always wanted to become. For many years, I lost control of who I was. All that ambition, all those goals were pushed back. Truly, I want to learn how I can become more expressive with myself. I want to reconnect with myself. Blogging is only one piece of putting me back together.
Via Tracy
Pablo's post (that I linked to earlier) reminded me of a section in It's Only Words which covered authenticity. I had been trying to work through something for a while which I eventually called "the identity paradox".
Our family, our work colleagues, our friends, all will share only a certain subset of our interests. We may be extremely close to family members and have many things in common due to constant proximity but, at the same time, have completely different taste in films, books, music ...
We might not be able to discuss the theological influences of the Matrix trilogy with fellow office workers or the finer points of Sartre's notion that man is “condemned to be free” across the dinner table ...
Circumstance doesn't allow us to fully explore each of the avenues we would wish to walk down. Writing, however, allows us to be the version of ourselves we are rarely fortunate enough to be.
This triggers the paradox:
... to the observer, it appears that the self we manifest through our writing is inauthentic compared to that which inhabits life off the page.
As Pablo puts it, writing allows us to find the person we've always wanted to become even if that doesn't match what others see.
in reply to:
Thank you for this great response. It's hard to be our true selves. Writing has truly let me show the real side of me when It seems impossible to do so around people. Even the people I can be “truly myself” with. I started reading your eBook and I am enjoying it.
July, 24, 2023