excavation.

I get anxious when unexpected people tell me they have seen or, more jarringly, read this blog.

It is the most public artifact of myself.

But-- it is not purposefully, articulately curated. It is an amalgam of randomness.

I am insecure with the incompleteness of the picture. The aesthetics. The subjectivity. The consumption and conclusions of others who land here, and presume this to be a proudly presented product- an accurate avatar for my person, my writing, me.

I am a private person. Protective of unpolluted inner space. I have been working to reconcile my desire to productively harness blogging and other useful forms of social media with my reticence to invite others into my orbit, or catapult myself into theirs-- in a torrent of trivial, delusional self-mythologizing. Compounding my terror of appearing self-important and egomaniacal, I find the whole selfie-culture with its unrelenting duckfaced self-documentation odious, corrupting, and falsifying.

But I am an artist. I am inherently arrogant, self-promoting, and self-aggrandizing. I am obsessed with myself foremost, and the exquisiteness of my own suffering, identity, appearance, and separateness. It is this identity as Creator, Curator, and Other that is challenged by the glut of self-promotional, self-documenting outlets available to everyone. The sacred pool of self-mythologizing-- once accessed only by those pathologically propelled there by some artistic necessity-- has become dilute, trivialized. Pithy thoughts can be blasted to millions. Photos can assume mysterious, possibly important shades of psychological nuance with the application of a filter. Anybody with an internet connection can blog.

This is the tension, encapsulated. The impasse.

If I blog, it has to be special somehow.

If I go on the record and join the cacophony of voices, how do I convey in this casual internet medium the intensity and specialness of my experience? How do I do it consistently, in a way I can be secretly proud of when people tell me they have stumbled across it? And how do I not sound like a total jackass?


I don't know.



But I don't think being quiet is working for me anymore. I think possibly coming across like a nut job or a megalomaniac is better than not coming across at all.

I say strange things.

And this inconsistent, convoluted attempt at honesty-- this is the most public artifact of who I am.

I'm glad you're reading.