I’ve been all up in my head about my blog for the last week or so. I’m always very self conscious about it, but sometimes that self consciousness decays into inaction. In a recent post, I talked about how awkward I feel about the darkness of some of my topics. I got a comment the other day from some dude saying, “I hope you pull out of your funk soon, get feeling better”. The funny thing is, I am doing great. This is the happiest I have ever been, and cool things happen to me every week. I am often reluctant to blog about them because I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging.
Sometimes it seems that this blog is a ridiculous parade of my narcissism and pseudo-self-importance. I wish that I had a huge gem of wisdom to drop here every day, but I think most days I feel pretty mundane. Ever since I saw Stephanie St. Claire’s blog www.Blissbombed.com, I fell into a state of blog envy. Her writing is big and beautiful. I wish I had more concretely formed nuggets of truth to share with you like she does. Dropping knowledge about the state of the human race makes my ego tingle just a little bit.
“We ought to do __________”
“It’s when we face our fears that we can finally ____________”
“We long for ____________”
“We get into relationships because ________________”
I wish I had more of this kind of thing to share with you. A few minutes ago, I was in the kitchen having a lunch of chips & salsa, and something hit me: When I am making broad, sweeping statements about the world and people in general, ie, when I use the word “we” – I’m really just talking about myself and making the most fundamental of all human errors: assuming that you think the same way I do.
I had a few more chips and let that truth sink in a little deeper. Something became more clear to me: I can never speak for you or anyone else. The word “we” gets abused. Hell, if I’m able to discern my own motives enough to make a semi-clear statement about my own thoughts and feelings, that’s a pretty fucking big accomplishment. It became more obvious to me that my blog is not a place to bounce around sweeping truths about humanity, gratuitously waving around the word “we” … rather:
It is my testimony.
This is what I observed as I went through the world peering out of these two peep holes that are my eyeballs. Here is what I saw. Take it for what it’s worth. The more I think about it, the more I feel that “we” statements are bullshit. I regularly have people come to me to for guidance. I have no clue why, but it happens. I’ve recently tried to refrain from saying things in sweeping terms, like, “When we _________ our____, then we can ______ the _______we ______. I’ve replaced that with statements like, “Here’s what I’ve experienced. If it makes any sense to you, if it relates to your reality, wonderful. If not, that’s fine too: “When I _________ my ____, then I can ______ the _______ I ______.
And so it is with this blog.
….And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…
