Why I Write

I came across an article the other day that said that students who write down their anxieties a few minutes before taking an exam actually test better than students who do not – significantly better, around 6 percent. I imagined that this type of study could easily be translated to life outside the classroom with the notion that writing about one’s life would inherently make them feel better and become a better person. This, however, automatically made me think of the concept of blogging, and in particular, microblogging, and my whole belief in this theory went straight out the window. You see, for a while, I believed that most blogging (and especially micro-blogging) was, quite frankly, a public ego-stroking session. There is no need to tell us what you are doing, and to tell us anyway and expect an answer would presuppose that we actually care. Additionally, if one were to receive any immediate gratification for such a thing (which is exactly how these things work) it would therefore validate whatever it was they were doing with their lives, as shallow and uninspiring it might be. I’m not saying that I don’t care about what other people have to say – quite the opposite. I love listening to people talk about themselves, hear them tell their stories and discuss their opinions. It’s what makes people so great – we’re all so wonderfully different from each other. I just hate the way people share the most mundane details about their lives and expect us to care. How they might think that everything that comes into their brain is so important and so witty that it would be a shame if it weren’t shared with the world. I also hated the notion of judging the value of one’s life solely on a virtual presence: how many comments we get, how many text messages we receive, how many emails and messages are in our mailbox. This type of thing, for the most part, makes us feel some false sense of importance, like we are actually wanted and needed by people. It is positive reinforcement, instant gratification. We do it because it makes us feel good, and keep on doing it because that is what we think will make us happy.  We see exactly how much people need us and so we feel that everything we are doing in our lives is worth whatever pain we went through to get it. I also believed it was a system that bred egoism and selfishness, and needlessly added to an already inflated self worth that many people have. It also didn’t offer much in the way of providing people with a way to truly connect with others either – it was too public. If I did start writing regularly in a blog again (and I did try), I would feel that every entry I write would simply be for the pleasure of those reading it and not for myself, and I felt that expressing my personal views in such a public forum would force me to censor myself.

I thought the whole thing was bullshit, and I was too lazy to continue it, so I stopped.

To get away from this would be freeing, I thought. I wouldn’t have to maintain some meaningless virtual presence. I wouldn’t feel the need to answer to anyone. I wouldn’t have to worry about what people were saying and I would never feel left out if I wasn’t a part of it. I mean, why do I have to feel the need to keep myself in the loop? Why do I have the expectation of being readily and easily contacted? Can’t I have the freedom to just, live, without the fear of being perceived that I am being aloof and antisocial? However, what the modern age has engrained into us is the assumption that if you are not online, well, you just don’t exist.

For a while, this lifestyle served me greatly. It kept me independent, allowing me to finally look inward and realize some of the things about myself that I never considered before. I felt for the first time in a long time I was actually able to become real with myself and ask myself the questions I never bothered or had the time to ask. What I realized however, and to finally get back to why I mentioned that article, is that it isn’t bullshit. I do think the act of sharing someone’s life, whether it is by talking it out or by writing it out, and being able to share this with others is what makes us, and will make us, better people. I spent the last few weeks re-reading entries from my Livejournal, circa 2005-2008, when I was in college and still posting regularly about anything that might come up in my life that I felt sharing. Most of what I found was mostly routine things – what I did that weekend, what music I started listening to, what stupid things happened to me at work or school. But a large part of what I found were amazingly personal and revealing entries, on a scale that I would’ve never imagined. I wondered why I would ever share such intimate secrets about myself – things that happened to me that I wouldn’t dare share with anyone at this point in my life, at least publicly. It’s not because I received the gratification of comments or compliments (I often wrote pages worth of entries to only receive 1 comment correcting my grammar). I realized that it was because I was writing to the people who I knew cared about me and cared about what I had to say. For every entry that would receive 1 comment, I would have ten others that received 20 or more. And these comments held depth. They would relate to me in the same way that I had to them, openly sharing their stories and admitting that they had found catharsis in what I had to say. I wasn’t just using my journal as a medium to shamelessly vent, feel sorry for myself, or publicly shun my parents (okay, maybe a little), I used it to get closer to the people I cared about. And, me opening up about my life allowed them to open up about theirs. It often didn’t even matter the content in which I wrote. There was always someone there to say how nice it was to hear from me and talk about whatever it was that struck them about my post. And that was enough.

One of the most important, if not the most important, aspect of our lives are our human relationships. Being able to regularly talk with someone – someone you know that cares about you as much as you care about them – is the only real thing that keeps us from becoming absolutely insane. We need these relationships in order to flourish, to truly become the people we know in our hearts that we can be. And, as much as we might reject this notion (and I do plan on talking at length about solitude at a later time), we cannot survive without people telling us once in a while that everything will be okay. However, we are often so busy with our own lives that we fail to realize how powerful this impact is. There is a wonderful quote by Thoreau I recently encountered while reading Walden, and I believe that it is extremely relevant to this subject manner:

Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a taste of that old musty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable, and that we need not come to open war. We meet at the post-office, and at the sociable, and at the fire-side every night; we live thick and are in each other’s way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose respect for one another.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what is different between the person I was then and the person I am now. I notice there are differences. However, I still don’t know if I am happier now than I was then. I also don’t know if I’m wiser now than I was then. But, I know that people cared about me and I knew it. I felt loved, and I felt blessed. I can’t ask for much more than that.

I’ve been a lifelong sufferer of what the French call L’esprit de l’escalier, or, The spirit of the staircase. It’s a phrase used to describe the phenomenon when a witty retort or clever remark to any given statement only comes to you after it is too late. The situation would have transpired at the bottom of the stairs, and you will only be able to find the right words to say after you have gotten to the top. This is why I write. I never say the right things in person, but with written words, I have the freedom to be the person I know I am, and be able to express that person completely. It’s a wonderful thing to share the things that make you happy with other people and to feel that you can talk about the things that make you sad. We wouldn’t feel so angry or misunderstood if we did it more often, and we would feel a hell of a lot more satisfied with our lives. We should talk more, then, if not for anything else than to keep us from going absolutely crazy.

Active Discussion

Anon • May 20th 2012

Joey • February 2nd 2011 • Reply
Oh no, I am well aware of their benefit. I know the profound effect they had on the current affairs in Egypt, and know exactly of the benefit they hold in certain situations that require quick, to-the-point, and continual updates on any news story of great importance. I am only saying that, for the most part, this service isn't used in this way and is primarily used for vanity and self promotion. I was also saying that this is the way I USED to think, but I have warmed up to it recently.

Jeff Micklos • February 2nd 2011
oh no, I am in agreement with you.

Services like Twitter promote the creation of data thats long-term cultural relevancy is equal to that of a fart (more or less). This is, at least in the long run, a huge issue.

Chris Jack • February 3rd 2011 • Reply
I wish I could say so much more about this than I am about to but...

The only way to free yourself from the anxiety of someones negative perception is to face that situation; only then can you realize how to become independent of it.

I don't write about my thoughts a lot but I can easily say that all my free memory and processes are spent in personal mental growth. L’esprit de l’escalier is something we all suffer from, the only thing you can do is tell yourself why you weren't on the ball and next time what situations it can apply to. In my opinion, the meaning of life is real simple and only requires very little things. I will tell you that nothing is worse than a person that doesn't know what they want or how to express themselves freely from being judged or misunderstood.

Joseph Flores • February 3rd 2011
Aw man, Chris, thanks for your comment. I wish you could say more...

Your point about facing negativity head on is interesting. My whole deal is about avoiding conflict if and when possible. I've recently been more assertive about myself, and have spoken up when things have bothered me, but sometimes it blows up in my face.

And, we all might suffer from L'esprit de l'escalier, but I am a chronic sufferer. Unlike you (i.e. Gordon Biersch), I very rarely say the right thing in any given situation. My usual response to any given statement that catches me off guard is smiling, looking down, and mumbling something to myself. This is something that improved for me lately, but only more as a result of me being more comfortable with myself rather than learning what not to do.

Chris Jack • February 3rd 2011
Yea I was thinking about your situation in being able to say the right things at the right time and how even though you are good at talking, its hard to get that initial, on the fly, witty chirp off. There can always be more Gordon Biersch, and as they say, the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference...

You just need to actively work on it, but I guess thats what this is about; easier said than done.

Chris Jack • February 3rd 2011
Oh and Joe, remember "eat the cup", that was more of a purposeful fail but I guess it goes back to my philosophy of failing before you can succeed.

Annie Szafranski • February 3rd 2011 • Reply
Joe, I'm really glad you wrote this. I was actually thinking about some of these things on my walk back home tonight, mostly about how, if you're not online, you just don't exist. I think it's a really good point to make, and I think it's interesting to compare the people who are always on facebook, to the people who rarely go on. Chances are, the more people who "don't exist" on facebook, probably are actually being productive and learning new things.

[Side note: It always kills me inside when I see people on facebook in class, I don't get it, its rude and they choose to look up what other people are doing, rather than learn something new that could change the way they view something. End side note]

Anyway, about blogging and micro-blogging, I never really thought about it as being for the people outside, but just for my own benefit. Blogging is a diary to me, or just memory that I can access any time. If I didn't write in the blogs that I have, I would never remember anything, well the details anyway, of my experiences growing up. Yeah, it may be just complaints of my adolescence, but I like to remember what I went though (some of the things). Same goes for twitter, I want to remember what I'm going though, I don't expect people to actually care what I'm tweeting. I do find other blogs directed towards an unknown group of people, odd, because they all write like they know everything, but I guess we can all learn a little something from everyone.

Joseph Flores • February 3rd 2011
Annie, it's really nice to hear from you. I was wondering whether any of the new posts on webtape have made their way to you, so I'm glad to hear that they have. I'm also happy you spent the time reading this monstrosity of an entry.

I am in complete agreeance with you on the topic of blogging. That is the exact view I had about blogging a few years ago and it just seems like I had forgotten it. Reading my old entries on here, I find no instances of vanity or self-promotion, I just see a guy excited about his life and willing to share it with his friends. It was definitely selfish and mean of me to think the way that I did, but I think I was just bothered by most of the things I encountered daily on facebook or twitter (and yes, I've had heated discussions on how much it bugs me to see people on facebook in class (and is also possibly one of the reasons I began to think the way I did)). You shouldn't feel self conscious about what you write, even the littlest things are nice, because I know you have depth to you. So, keep writing, I'm really looking forward to what you have to say.

Annie! • February 5th 2011
Aw thanks Joe. I have sort of been off line for a bit myself, school has started and I have been busy working on homework and such. I have been meaning to read and respond!

Facebook has definitely put a negative feeling in all of us, mostly how certain people use it an don't filter what photos they put up, or what pointless things they post (even moving towards the blog world) but I could never feel like that with webtape. I look forward to everything posted on here, which is why I'm glad yours is so long, because I know your actually writing something important.