The crushing weight of being a good writer
I can write almost anything, as long as there’s a hint of darkness — something to overcome by growing out of a darker version of yourself; some ancient insight put into new words that re-contextualise a present darkness; something inexplicably beautiful that resonates strongest in people who have been hurt before.
I’m working on writing happier things, unharboured by the chains of guilt, pain or dread. It’s difficult though, partly because I’m so well practised in describing emotional contrasts that writing without them feels like baking a cake without sugar.
But it’s also hard because the in-the-moment sensations that I feel when I’m inspired to write are exactly those three aforementioned feelings: Guilt, for both the article I haven’t written yet but which may be of some use to somebody, and for not yet knowing the exact configuration of words to express the required solution to their problem; pain, from the empathetic connection I feel to that theoretical person who might hurt a little less on account of my words, but whose pain I have to fully understand before I can effectively summarise it; and dread, as the multiple moving parts of the piece bubble up and overflow beyond my boundaries of my mental capacity.
More often than not, it feels as though I am drowning, and only when a piece is finished can I reach the surface. And there are so many things I want to write about — no, feel like I have to write about. Because until I do, I’m still drowning, each time I surface offering a short gasp of air before the remembered realisation that I have something else that needs to come out of me.
This is the weight of my writing. It bears a strong resemblance to the weight that all deeply good and charitable people feel: I must do better, I must help more.
Sometimes I just have to accept that what I do is enough. It’s hard, since fully knowing one’s potential for gifting others with kindness comes also with the awareness of one’s own limits. Actually, I take that back: It seems more likely that the more you are aware of what you can provide, the less focus you have left over for your own needs.
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Note: Unpublished because this isn’t strictly true. Most often, I find the words just pour out of me, and there’s no hardship.
I’d like to expand on this, perhaps also discussing the seemingly constant “this but that” mindset I have, where multiple seemingly incompatible routes can exist.
I’d also like to mention how the described pressure is an often-occurring thing, not just from writing but from any large conceptual idea that I have to hold in my head for too long.
My most common feeling while writing is actually one of peace and harmony, of flow; it’s only when I need to hold several data chunks in my mind that things become difficult. But even then, after giving them time to settle, I find it easy to pick up the pieces later. I don’t know, I’m still unclear on my writing process, how it affects me in either the positive or negative sense. I know for sure that I love writing, and I think perhaps I’ve put a bit too much pressure on myself, as I do with any of my projects. I like that drive within me, it pushes me towards perfecting the crafts I practise; it certainly has some weight to it, but also, this just seems to be the way I work.
I have an unrelated story in my mind, and if I can see that to completion, I feel like that will be a substantial milestone towards understanding how these words take form, and what my relationship to them is. I’m treating this new story differently, letting it take shape in my mind without weighing it down with my own expectations and theocraticals.