Friday Pragmatism | An element of fear | Writing

I do not celebrate my birthday in any way. My parents for reasons known only to them, don’t seem to be able to let the occasion pass without some kind of action marking it, and while for me I’d rather celebrate my mother’s efforts on the day seeing as my involvement more-or-less consisted of just being there, I let them indulge themselves.
One other thing worth noting is that I rarely ever ask anything of anyone ever.

Last year was to be and most likely will remain the only exception.
I invited a specific group of people to my house for lunch, at which my parents were present, and I asked them to read a selected work from my writing.
Certain things ensued from that event and are subtly still in action, however in conversation with my father at a later date, he mentioned that he felt that he along with many others felt afraid of the text. It wasn’t a conflicting discussion at all, and generally my father and I easily converse about such things as long as he’s not overtired or in a particularly lazy frame of mind which given his age and life-experience, he’s perfectly entitled to.

It was a very interesting thing to hear.
There are other factors that leveraged that fear, primarily my subdued behaviour on the day and everyone’s various individual experiences with me while I’ve been ill. Nevertheless, that my father feels afraid of my writing conjures many responses; I’m partly amazed, a little disappointed and a little sorrowful, and to be honest, a little empowered. Sometimes when I write, I don’t believe anyone else will ever make sense of it in any capacity – not because of any lack of perception or ability on their part, purely because so much of it is intimate and specific to my experience. Most of the time I believe people read it and don’t feel anything at all which doesn’t worry me. Something else he said was that it was beautiful – something about it was beautiful but he didn’t know what it was, couldn’t describe it, and that words failed him. For that little feeling of empowerment, this combines with that response of fear very well.

The disappointment comes I guess from expecting a little more from him and indeed the others. I wanted people to test their fears and boundaries, particularly when it’s in a safe environment with family, and for them to be curious and explorative. To ask questions of me, of each-other and to talk about it, but then in a way the fact that they apparently all froze (I was not in the room) and were awkward is also in a way rewarding. I did and continue to speak with my dear friends about the text, all of whom were perfectly comfortable with it but then they are exposed to me with the greatest degree of intimacy, naturally more-so than my parents, however my parents and others stood to learn something of the text and of me by engaging in discussion about it.

Nevertheless, I’m still intrigued by this fear. There are very few things that I am actually afraid of in life, but that’s no tough-guy statement. The things that I do indeed fear, I fear greatly. They are complicated and ambiguous, unquantifiable and intangible, almost all intimately tied to mental illness. I guess given my primary experiences, I actually find it difficult to react with fear when it comes to ideas presented in text or any other art-form. Monsters aren’t really scary things; not even pain or death. Pain surely hurts, I’m not saying it won’t hurt if I’m in a car accident for example, but I don’t fear that accident. There have been times when cars have been out of control behind me in my mirrors, or one example when the car in which myself and a friend were travelling were hit by a car which proceeded to roll across the road in-front of us, but I’ve never feared for my life or wellbeing. The things I fear are much closer to me than these things; it’s difficult to describe with language, and I guess I discuss them in abstract. Even the nature of that fear itself is ambiguous; I’m not talking about the same kind of fear as being under threat and being afraid of some kind of trauma, though there is a healthy part of that when it comes to fits and break-downs in public places or large gatherings of people.

I’m still working on this… project, for lack of a better term. Personally I reference it as a translation process but I’m hesitant to discuss it publicly thus, as indeed it sounds terribly pretentious without being privy to the details. It’s the longest I’ve ever worked on something and it’s still going, having taken up pretty much the entirety of 2009 in Vroenis, the only exceptions being one or two entries in January. It is to me my most beautiful work, and it seems, the most elusive when it comes to others. I know it’s terribly conceited but it’s the nature of the beast; some writers will always feel empowered by having others not understand them and I comfortably fit into this mode. The keys to unlocking the text, if there are any at all, can only be gained by intimate knowledge of my life, thoughts and experiences outside of the work and perhaps that is one of the reasons I wanted to share the work with my family. As much as there is to be learnt about the piece, it is comprised of things from my life translated in abstract which form a significant representation of what my life is like. I can’t begrudge them their anxiety and trepidation though. A schizophrenic is not often the most immediately gratifying person to spend time with, and when it comes to my parents, people who have spent so much time caring for me and in many ways still do, I empathise with any feelings of exhaustion even though they continue to deny them, bless their wonderful hearts.

That project is my most treasured translation, my best product, most honest representation and most beautiful writing. It is the key to my affections, my fears and weaknesses, and the everyday experience of the Strangeness. The way I think on it now, for the moment, it is the single most accessible gateway to intimacy that I have. If I’m ever to be done with it, I may decide never to write anything ever again, and be perfectly contented with the fact.