Where’s My Joy?

It’s in here somewhere, and I’m bout to find it.

I don’t write anything for myself. I made this realization over the long weekend. Everything I write is for public critique. Every word I put out into the universe is created to inspire and impress readers other than myself. Nothing I write is for my eyes only. I don’t think that’s a good thing.

I love writing. I’ve come so far in my career that every time I sit in front of a laptop I do so knowing that someone else, usually a lot of someone elses, will be reading my thoughts. While consciously, I welcome that kind of pressure and get energized just thinking about the possibility of thousands and one day millions of people reading something that once lived in my mind, I’m not sure how healthy that is.

So I asked myself this weekend — where is MY joy? What do I get to keep to myself free from any judgement? That question forced me to face the very real possibility that all the writing I’ve been doing recently hasn’t come from a place of passion and enjoyment. While I don’t think this is true, I want to reclaim that feeling of unfiltered expression, of unedited thoughts, and unrefined words. And I want to love it.

Expression Over Everything

Even for someone like me who believes to my core that all art is meant to be consumed because it’s that important to the pulse of the world and the people in it, I’m now exploring the theory that there’s some parts of your art that need to be for the self and the self only.

I could honestly be wrong. Won’t be the first time. I could discover that I have no prolonged interest in following this path. But something in me is unsettled and I need to pinpoint the origin. I think this is it.

So I started journaling. First thing I now do in the morning is open up this small notebook and aimlessly write my thoughts. I write as sporadically as the thoughts enter my mind. At least I try to. After years of conditioning myself to be cautious of every single word that gets released onto the page, letting go of those restraints takes a bit more effort than I imagined. Getting over this mental bridge alone might be a milestone that will change the way I approach my public writing, maybe change the way I approach my life.

I’m Still Me

OK, so I’m not like giving up my blog, nor am I going to stop writing books or writing scripts. That’s definitely not part of the plan. I’m just saying that I started writing because of the joy I felt every time I opened a book. Reading how Toni Morrison and Khaled Hosseini and Jhumpa Lahiri and Joseph Conrad put words together on a page that transformed themselves into lucid images in my mind, stirred emotions in me like no other form of expression. I wanted to be that for other people.

And while I always dreamt of having millions of people engulfed in my every word, I wasn’t as consumed with metrics back then as I am now. I didn’t check my analytics every day or write SEO friendly content. It was just raw, off the top type of content that felt like a blast of imagination with every syllable.

Joy has come in other ways since then. Starting, completing, and putting out two books, writing for platforms that I grew up reading, having readers express their emotional connection to something I’ve written gives my endorphins a workout.

But I see the limitations of that. My joy is dependent on someone else validating my work. I should say that too much of my joy is wrapped up in the reaction of others validating my work. There needs to be more of a balance. I need to feel good about what I create without anyone else in the world telling me how great or terrible it is. Even more than that, I just need to create without assessing the grammatical or literate value of what I’ve put on the page.

So far there’s been a freedom that I’ve yet to experience till now, distinct from when I first started writing. But I’m still holding back. I’m still not letting go of whatever fear I have of being aggressively honest. Because that’s the aim here. I realized that the first day I journaled — I’m aiming for honesty. And being honest requires that I battle any fear protecting itself from truth.

Not sure how it will all turn out, and neither will you :)

CRY