Nerve

 It's been a while since I've written anything constructive. Just the act of putting words to the page causes a kind of low key panic. The panic is not that the words go down but that they'll be read. Words don't exist to be sequestered, they exist to be shared. I don't understand people who write diaries for themselves, sometimes volumes and volumes of them: so much effort purely for their own edification. Perhaps I don't have enough sense of self to take reward from my own doings, but what's the point of a diary you keep entirely to yourself?

And yet the thought that people read what I write is more than I can take because when people read what you write, people judge what you write. It's easy to write something relatively personal about your doubts, there are a couple dozen people who will rush to your support - you appreciate them, but we're all doing our best human duty in supporting each other when one of us appears to need it.

But what about when we write our more objectionable thoughts? What about the stuff we really want to write?

What about thoughts about Israel/Gaza war that both the Israeli side and the Palestinian side would view as unprintable heresy? Well past what they think I think of either... Thoughts I keep to myself because I'd rather not endanger the friendships.

What about thoughts on other subjects: books, movies, music, the stuff nobody gives a shit about... the stuff that if I stop to think about what I'm thinking about, I'm always get worried I'll be caught in a howling mistake that proves I don't know what I'm talking about?

What about fiction? What about fiction that includes descriptions so deliberately disgusting that you'd think twice about associating with a soul who'd write such things? What about the best piece of fiction I ever wrote, which is from the point of view of a trans person in Cleopatra's court? What about the simple fact that if I publish the fiction in any manner, publishing companies wouldn't pay me shit - so I have to keep it to myself, all in the hope that publishing companies will be interested in the kind of difficult, form-disregarding writing for whom they never have interest in otherwise.

I can't find the quote, but in some book VS Naipaul has a bit about how after 40, a man loses his nerve. We won't talk about Naipaul, but nerve is what I'm beginning to lose. We all know that life gets simpler after 40. As you get older, you lose energy, you lose possibilities, you lose opportunities, you lose memories, you lose concentration, if you're not lucky like me you lose your basic health too. Unless you're an exception to the rule, your life story basically has its trajectory. You start to settle in for the long haul of what life will be, and if you really want to expend the energy to change things, expect that you will only have enough energy for that fight and none more.

So I guess the only choice is to fight against my waning nerve, and expect nothing out of life but exactly this fight.

So see ya soon with more controversial Israel writing, more bad writing about subjects you don't care about, and more great fiction none of you will like.

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