Speaking My Language
"don't let your content speak for you."
I was once told this, a while back, by someone who had never experienced the anonymity of writing on the internet. The truth is, well... the opposite. While I do know of a few dozens actual real-life acquaintances that read my work, most of you are strangers. How you found me, or why you continue to read them, is almost entirely hidden from me. So the content I make DOES speak for me. I write the words, and you -- without prior knowledge as to who I am -- interpret the collections of letters as you see fit. With a slight lean, by me of course.
So when you sit down, and you put your weight into the sentences you rely on so keenly to portray the heart you have, know that the content DOES speak for you, but you can help it speak in your language.
The more of yourself you feel you have the ability to put into the words you intertwine, the clearer the liquor will be. Distill it. Soak the wooden pages in your voice. A detachment from brain to ink is extremely effortless to spot, and disingenuous phenomenology is a terribly tough chew.
I never knew it was a skill, until I was told I wouldn't be anything without it.
"You're really good at making people feel the way you feel, or your character feels."
So without the afflicting addiction to the adversities seen through a point-of-view, and my desire to write them down in one form or another; there would cease to be any me strewn out into these words.
I'd no longer be present.
When I was young, and I wrote odd things, I guess I wasn't actually aware of what I was doing. The ink moves faster than my tongue, yet they speak from the same place, and are strung by the same heart. What I was writing -- even though at the time I didn't even really consider what I was doing to be "writing" -- was the words I wanted to say, the way I wanted to say them, without relying on my mouth.
That hesitance. That self-doubt. And cat's ownership of my speech, helped me get here. Where I am. With this "skill".
But no matter how long I stand on the sidewalk, waiting for the suns rays to move their way across the street, to warm my skin, I am left in the shade of a thousand tall buildings, and a million louder voices. Which is why I am here. With you. Where I'm the voice, behind the content, that speaks my language.
wf.
Header Image by: Michael MacRae