The spotlight

It's been about two weeks since I last posted. I was going to try to post something every day, then got busy with a new job. And then I read on another webpage that someone had actually read this blog and it threw me for a loop even though she was perfectly polite about it.

I mean, it shouldn't have shocked me. If I wanted to write for myself alone, I could keep a journal. But the fact that I haven't had any comments to what I was writing lulled me into thinking that I was only writing for myself and it gave me pause to think of someone else reading the words I'd put down.

That thought led to my mind freezing every day when I thought about returning to post something to the blog. I began to second guess myself, thinking, "what would someone else think about what I was writing about", "someone" being no one in particular, just a friend or foe or the unknown reader. I know an author is always supposed to consider the audience you are writing for but I have found it completely inhibiting.

Part of the reason for starting a blog was to get over this useless kind of paralysis, and be open and vulnerable enough to share my ideas, come what may. A lot of this blog has been "fluff", not serious contemplation or controversial opinions but it has revealed part of who I am right now and so the fact that I was able to do it at all I count as an accomplishment.

So, I'm going to try to revive it and keep going on, aware that there might (or might not!) be an audience for my words and just try to be myself...the insightful parts as well as the ordinary, mundane parts. I'll try to keep it interesting but, more importantly, I'll try to keep it honest and real. See you tomorrow!

Risk

Has it ever happened that you've been listening to or singing along with a song that you are familiar with (and in my case, don't even like that much!) and all of a sudden you hear something you never heard before?

That happened last night to me with a song by John Lamberton Bell...there is a line in one of his songs that goes "Will you risk the hostile stares/Should your life attract or scare" and it just hit a nerve. I have such ambivalent feelings about risk...in one sense there is the craving for the new and unexperienced but there is an equally strong fear about unexpected outcomes, rejection, and possible disappointment. Some might chalk it all up to confidence but it is easy to be confident in activities that we routinely do. That is why repetition can at times be so comforting.

But this line highlights the risk of being in the spotlight which, to me, sometimes feels like being under a microscope. The hazards of being an introvert in a creative field. Unless your only audience is the mirror, you need to put yourself and your work out there and once you release it to the world, it is out of your hands. I think it takes a detachment that I have yet to acquire.