Rarely in my life have I felt compelled to tell my story. I’ve conducted enough interviews, written enough profiles to know that the way each of us tell our own story tends to skew away from the actual truth and toward what we would like to be perceived as the truth. I am a writer; I am in the habit of observing, listening and trying to make sense of a person; I see this in everyone; I’m no exception. In fact as a writer, an idealist, the skew is probably more drastic. So there is one reason. The other is the fact that everything I’ve done in my life, anything that’s happened to me has already happened. Which makes it boring. I write for nearly the same reason I read: to have something to do that I genuinely enjoy. I do not want to read what has already been done, by me or others before me. In high school this personality trait was described as ADHD or learning disabled. In therapy in adulthood it was diagnosed as a tendency toward OCD or perfectionism. Either way, what stimulates me most of the time is anything I haven’t done, or felt, or seen. I have a compulsion to uncover mystery. At the same time I like it best when life stays mysterious.
Now I’m in the trap: I’m writing myself. I might create myself in my own image like the millennial narcissist I am, obsessively perfecting the way I’m seen—including by myself—but however incorrectly I do so, the whole world still comes to life through my eyes. As ancient practices teach, I’m not doing anything to make this so; I’m the mere occurrence of consciousness. But removing myself from the equation altogether is nearly impossible if I’m writing honestly: I have to disclaim that this is what I think. It’s my version of perceived reality. In other words, writing is just another narcissistic outlet. (This is also reductive and I don’t entirely believe it; however, there is an argument to be made for it. I do believe it at times.)
There might be another aspect of my inability to give in to writing about me. You might be thinking it and I’ll say it: fear. It is painfully vulnerable to tell the world anything about yourself, especially in your own words. People (myself worst of all when it comes to reading my own writing) are harsh, unfair, flawed, jealous, competitive, and also just mean. It can feel like there is a lot at stake, writing things down. If you do it well, you might be something of a writer, but if you do it poorly you are a bad writer with plenty of other personal flaws worth criticizing. So I get to the top of the page and on many an occasion, stop before I start. At least this way I am only unproductive.