After my birthday and my eighth blogiversary, I had this brilliant idea in which to re-energize my blog. I would sit down every night at midnight and write the first thing that came to my mind, no matter how short a piece, like an old-fashioned personal diary. Â It seemed like an effective and simple concept, and I promoted it to others.
It was a very very very bad idea.
Most of my friends are full of compassion and dedicated to social justice, using their online influence to better the world. They share their “secrets to success.” They rally their followers against what is wrong in our society — from income inequality to gaining universal acceptance of gay marriage. Or they make us laugh, to ease the pain.
But when I sit down to write, at least at the midnight hour, when the night goes silent, and the city settles into bed, there is nothing more fearful than the voice of my honest heart. I hear the cries of disappointment and anger, lust and shame, jealousy and tears. I bully myself for my lack of courage, and then I turn to you, the reader, with my index finger shaking in your face, mocking your hypocrisy, blindness, and pettiness. And then, when guilt sets in, I apologize, begging for forgiveness.
“It is love talking,” I say. “I love you too much. And you don’t love me enough.”
It’s partly true. Â No, it’s mostly bullshit. Â I don’t know what I’m saying. Â And that’s the problem. Â At midnight, when thoughts arise, they bounce around in unexpected ways, like a rubber ball in a racquetball court. Stories of love and friendship warp into tales of yearning and abandonment.
Writing takes discipline and intelligence. There is none of that at midnight in my house. Now you know why I abandoned this “write every day” project after day four.
It would kill me. Â I need to go back to writing during the day, when the sun is out. Â Maybe once a week.
