Why I Blog...

Why I blog? I don’t know. Not entirely. Maybe I’ve given into the narcissism of this age. Maybe writing accords me the privilege of holidaying from my life. Maybe it is the camaraderie of being in this exclusive and rather curious occupation of writing. The stopping at time to throw yourself in this imaginary world which at times is the only real thing. The love for the people you create. It makes you prod those who are really real. Makes you cold and cynical at times. There is a piece of ice in every writer’s heart, say Nabokov. And it rings true. But man is just man in the end…no better no worse.

Perhaps anonymity gives me courage. I can be honest with the world and myself…behind a mask. Shedding inhibitions and all that poetic mush. A cat would be, while serving the purpose, unresponsive which while charming in its own way, gets old fast. A man would be a catastrophic defeating of the purpose.

Maybe writing is the only way I know to extend myself to the world…I don’t know any other way. I write therefore I am? Perhaps it is all these things and something above and beyond them. I write because I can. Because I must tell it all. Because all of this will fade. It is also purely selfish, merely that it pleases me. 

Life’s most unspeakable cruelty is that it urges us on. It demands to be lived. Like a slave master who feeds slaves on a slave ship. We need a break from this paradox. That isn’t to say that a paradox isn’t a good thing.

I need to be horrified not for the man, but for the moment. And I need you to be horrified with me. I need company in my misery and blindness.

I must also tell you silly things. Like there’s nothing like the smell of rain on dry earth.  And that I will never be twenty again walking the streets at night on a Good Friday, my waist clasped in huge firm hands.

So here we all are in this moment capsule of living and I must tell you that nothing has been surrendered. Nothing taken. And I’m not sure to what extent that is a victory. If I have failed at being human it is because that failure is a prerequisite for this condition. The Human condition. If I have lied, cheated, stolen or bled…it is because these were necessary. Simply it is that I write, not to be alone!