My Struggle to Write

This whole blogging thing has got me in a bit of a predicament.

I honestly think that writing down the thoughts helps me to organize them and reflect on them. Even as I write them, I start the judge them. Both in a good way, and a bad way.

In the way these judgments are good: in the sense that I realize once I put my thought into words, I see how flawed they can be, or I see some missing piece of the puzzle that I failed to realize before. I don’t think I need to write them down in order to benefit from this process, but the act of writing it down forces me to slow down and deliberately think the thoughts through to their completion, rather than having a general idea that I trick myself into thinking is a complete thought.

On the negative aspect of things, once I write things down and the flaws are laid bare - whether that be in the writing, or the thoughts themselves - it makes me hesitate to post it. Or I feel the need to revise and edit until the post is solid and reasoned. And If I was to guess, I would think that the majority of people would probably see it reasonable to put more time and effort into each post to make it more “polished” before making it public. And in a way I am tempted to do just that…but the thing is that a big part of having this blog is to avoid the need to do that. As soon as I need to plan, edit, and revise my writing it is going to feel like work; and I going to simply stop writing. Not only that, but then it feels like I am writing to make content, rather than writing to let my thoughts gather and evolve. I think the planning and editing could be very helpful to do this in a way, as I have had to obviously do this when writing college papers….but I am not trying to feel the need to write an essay every time I want to write a post.

The most logical thing to do would be to simply write an offline/private journal, so that there is no pressure - and whatever I write simply exists for my own sole benefit. But the irony is that although I want to write for myself, the mere fact that my blog is public gives me the motivation to try and write and post. So even though I am writing for myself, I have to admit that a part of me isn’t writing for myself, but for the recognition by others. I don’t want to write for the recognition of others, and I have tried to make my blog in a way that there are no likes or comments (no external indicators of the fact that anyone is or isn’t actually visiting/reading my posts) - but regardless, there is a small part of me that wants to share my thoughts with others, to be heard, and to connect…in some weird and corny way.

Simply put, I need to find a way to keep writing and posting - even if its uncomfortable to put my half-assed, rambling, and incredibly flawed ideas into writing to potentially be seen and read by others. I truly do think that the process itself is beneficial, and that if I continue to do it, then hopefully my disconnected thoughts will start to better make sense, and in turn I will be better equipped to communicate them.

–Anthony