why, dear god, why???

since i first started writing this thing, this blog, i've had many different people ask me the same question. the question ranged in tone from incredulous to dismissive to accusatory to awed, but it was always the same: "why do you write your blog!?"

why do i feel this compulsion to share my thoughts and feelings and stories with a faceless audience? why do i open myself up to criticism and judgment? and i have to tell ya, it's a valid question.

so why do i write this thing? i could answer with the haphazard way i stumbled into it...

i was writing a play in which a character wrote a blog. (given the huge disdain for blogs, the blog has been replaced with a zine, incidentally.) a desire to better understand this strange blog world was coupled with a new friend's invitation to visit his blog, so i decided to check it out. well at the time, in order to comment on his blog, i actually had to register with the blog site - a clever manoeuvre that had me setting up the full look and feel of my blog before i could proceed with my all-access pass to comment-land. so there i was, suddenly with somewhere to dump the mess of scribbles i was already engaged in anyway.

well ok sure, that could be an answer. but it would only explain how i started, not why i continue...

well, i'm a writer. i write a lot: i write down things i observe, i record funny or interesting snippets of conversation, and i write to sort through the jumble of thoughts that are attempting to help me figure something out. like my life...

when i first started "recording" these thoughts publicly, it didn't even occur to me that anyone but my fellow blog-friend would even look at my blog. and then eventually i started telling friends about it. and then i started giving the link to people i would meet and have interesting conversations with - so much less intrusive and actually so much more effective than exchanging e-dresses that nobody will ever use.

and then one day, a stranger commented. some person in the states that i had never nor would ever meet. then someone from montreal. then someone from texada island. then an old friend found me and we reconnected. and i realized that my life and thoughts and feelings were actually being read. meaning they were laid out there for anyone to see - kin or stranger, friend or foe.

and yet, i kept writing.
why??
why this desire (is it a need?) to spread my soul's legs for the whole world to stare at?

is it a low self-esteem? (perhaps)

is it a need for acceptance? (surely in some way, but ultimately i think not.)

am i just pathetic? i don't know... maybe i am. but if i am, i stand amongst an army of beautiful, pathetic soldiers who have felt an unstoppable compulsion to share their soul and experiences with the world. Vincent Van Gogh, William Blake, Charles Bukowski, Leonard Cohen, Jack Kerouac, Frida Kahlo, Beethoven, Sylvia Plath, Hank Williams Sr., and on and on and on. a legion of open souls. can we ever truly understand what inspires artists to bare their souls to the world? maybe not. but we can agree that it always makes us all that much richer.

and it's not just artists! most humans exist for contact. so that even a conversation over the water cooler about some reality tv show becomes an exclamation - a manifesto of self: THIS is who i am, THIS is how i think, THIS is why i feel! we are social beings, stretching our souls out always to connect, to relate to our fellow humans. to understand each other - and by necessary extension ourselves - a little better.

now i won't pretend that my blog ramblings are as inspired or amazing as the artists i referenced. i do have "some" grip on reality! but every so often, i'll get a comment from someone on the other side of the globe, or down the street, who can relate to what i've written, or who is moved to feel or think from what i've written. and in those beautiful, tiny, human moments, i (and hopefully my readers) can feel that much more connected to the community of souls that populates our globe.

futility

i’ve seen some pollution in my day.

i’ve eaten Tokyo crackers, individually wrapped, then wrapped in bundles of 4s, then 8s, in 2 columns, in a double-wrapped container. i’ve seen mounds of litter cradling decaying street cats in Athens. i’ve swooned on the belched fumes of mile-long parades of punch-buggy taxis in Mexico City.

so as i sit here dilligently peeling away all the scotch tape applicants have slathered all over their envelopes (and as a side note: what, where they afraid the application would attempt a getaway? what is with the obsessive amount of tape? sometimes i wonder if they even want us to be able to open them…), as i sit here peeling away each strip of tape, tearing out each plastic business-envelope window, i can't help but wonder: what’s the fucking point!?