On writing and feeling

*furrow brows*

I don't remember the last time I wrote a genuinely contemplative entry, the quiet kind, one that makes you feel like you're sitting knee to knee, in deep conversation with a person or with people who nod in understanding and know how much it matters to you, and share their own perspectives, the kind that, when you flip back to browse through with your diarist's eye, will have your eyes light up in recognition at the flood of memories of not only an event, but the feelings that come along with it. The kind that has your smile tugging at your lips at something amusing, a volley of laughter at a delightful narration, or a tear evoked by genuine emotion, blinked back into the warmth of your heart, or an eyebrow raised wryly surveying the impossibilities of your own words or another's, something natural and full of life by itself.

Where have you gone, these feeling entries of mine? Wilt thou come forth again, disregarding the growing pairs of eyes upon you, or will you be carefully dressed in words that say little, and feel even less? And will the memories fail to be significant because they are not lovingly recorded, full and beautiful in their sincerity while simple in language? Will you stumble out awkwardly, like the writer who strings you together, worrying about who you may offend, or how much you will be undervalued, whether you will be like everyone else-- the glizty photos, the necessary tinge of humour, the diplomatically correct speeches, the laughter without the tears, the smile without the wistfulness, the hope without the fears? The perfunctory updates: I exist because I tell you so, the quick flashes of moments that linger not, come, touch and go, breathless, mundane, and careless, without heart?

Are you afraid to write the way you did because you fear you have lost the easy, frank, direct style, because everyone else is writing, because you think these lingering entries become a wannabe cheemo kinda thing? Because types and categories have existed in these devices called blogs? Because you will only show a public self in a public arena?

Because you have begun to recognise every little word and image as so obviously a construct that you are afraid of having the fullness of an experience dwindle into nothing but a meaningless construction?

Do things lose their significance when they become common? Lose their class when they become popular, hence "average", "typical", "oh, like that lor, nothing much"?

Where are you headed, little writer, you fleeting thoughts so noisy and light? Where is your echo of the wave of emotions that wash upon your consciousness, that swish into visibility within your mind's eye? Have they all retreated into the ocean of subconscious, awkward in their self-consciousness at the sudden exposure, or have they been replaced by the pictures that seem to say more, the photos that gleam happy, bright and attention-catching?

Perhaps, little writer, your disappointments, your fears, your aches oughtn't be so hurriedly shoved aside in pretended non-existance. To be real you need to be whole, and to be whole you need to feel all, be all, acknowledge in grateful understanding everything, everything...

*casts a desperate glance at audience* But... too many......

And not write in codes that befuddle everyone and frustrate yourself. As though you never felt sadness, or anger, never wept tears or drew your blankets up to your chin, trembling in quiet nights and still mornings when no one stirs yet, when the enormity of everything hits you so acutely. Life and people and unknowns and big black looming uncertainties that reach out to pull you out of your comfort zone.

.......

Sigh.

*switches back to brisk conversational tone*

No, no usual square-shoulders-and-toss-head-and-everything-will-be-all-right entry-closing thing, and not even making optimistic promises this time because what do I say? I will write better? I will abandon trashy stuff? Certainly not quite possible, not when it proves to be cathartic sometimes, the writing process, though not always fondly re-read because it tells me nothing more about my life other than the fact that I mapled and gunbounded during the hols, made promises to read many books but did barely a few, or was rushing deadlines for essays and cannot finish my text Middlemarch... The bla-bla stuff will stay, but I will attempt more... meaningful entries, in a sense, to recall why I started writing my online diary early in Sec 2, those entries that matter, those moments a distinct glimpse of a moment in the 525,600 minutes in a year, certain quiet reminders of where I come from, where I'm headed, stuff that can be shared and understood.

Perhaps not by so many. I hate it that I feel uneasy with people, lots of people, and it nags at me so. *sigh* We'll see how it goes.