Suspended comfort

It has been a while since I last published a blog post that isn’t a book review. At the start of this year I sort of made a promise to myself (though no pressure) to dedicate more time and effort to blogging and sharing my thoughts publicly with others. I already keep a journal and write almost daily, but the private nature of this writing allows me to hide from dialogues, feedback, or just external discernment, unless I decide to discuss my thoughts in real life conversations. Shielded by the comfort of not sharing my writing to any audience, I get accustomed to having no standard whatsoever for my formulation of thoughts and line of reasoning. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, for I often dread being restricted by burdensome standards and stunting my own disposition for self-expression than producing poorly written ideas. The risk, however, has more to do with a combination of doing subpar writing (which is quite okay) and then refraining from sharing it publicly for fear of judgment and criticism. The rational part of me is convinced that (a) generally people offer legitimate criticism and not blind hate, so this in fact works well in my favor, and (b) no one really expects top-tier ideas or articulation from a non-professional writer like me, so it’s only a waste of time to obsess over not delivering “perfection”. Yet the irrational part of me conjures imaginary pressure and expectation out of thin air, and feels obliged to only have on public display the best possible products. The desire to share nothing short of perfection scares me into infrequent writing practice, which in turn blunts my skill to produce anything decent, which further traps me in the spiral of perfectionism and fatigue over self-imposed pressure.

For the past few days I’ve thought about this a lot and decided it’s time I took on a challenge to overcome this imaginary barrier. For the next few days (or weeks, if I can keep it up) I am aiming to be sharing some kind of writing every day on this blog – no matter how good, bad, or downright shitty. I’m not a fan of grand gesture and making a big deal of things I do, especially when the things are solely for myself and my own benefit. At the same time, I get that a part of disciplining myself into action (in this case, the act of writing for a public audience) is to have accountability and to actually grow comfortable with that audience. So yes, I’m writing this very first entry solely to announce the commitment to write daily, because it helps with accountability AND counts as today’s input.

When I think about it, my inability to write and publish publicly is ironically both comfortable and uncomfortable. In a way I’m hiding from external judgment or criticism and soothing my mind with the notion that I’m safe from feedback, even the flattering ones. At the same time, I feel stifled by my own choice to not speak out on topics I care about, engage with others (for I can always learn something beyond my limited knowledge this way), and receive legitimate criticism. And of course the spiral of perfectionism offers no comfort or reassurance whatsoever. This is why committing to write daily for the next while is my attempt to both suspend and sustain comfort – to extract the most of what I rationally know is good for myself, and suppress the temptation to succumb to irrational worries and concerns. Just putting out there what goes on in my mind on a daily basis seems to carry certain benefits for me at the moment, and I apologize in advance for the potentially mediocre writing as well as the oversharing.