I’ve been dreading life and writing, losing interest even in my blogging efforts, and feeling myself slide into a sort of malaise because I felt as though I wouldn’t be able to create anything of enough value for people to bother with.

But just today, I had a real Eureka! moment, and started writing and didn’t put down the keyboard for a long while. What I realized was, if I’m going to write something of value and worth, I’m going to have to gouge out my soul and hand it over for public inspection. Does this set me up to be mocked? Admired? A little of both? No way to know as of now, but the rewards are as enticing as the consequences are chilling. I do know for a fact that there’s enough pain and heartache and misery within me to fill up a few dozen volumes of compelling literature if I can manage to spit it out onto a piece of paper and then drum up the courage to let it be seen.

This revelation feels ‘right’ to me in one sense, since it gives me some measure of confidence that I have some stories that are worthy of being told, but the risk is far more painful to think about than I’ve been willing to admit to myself until now. The lighthearted side of storytelling is not me, never has been, and I can’t imaging it would be of any worth to anyone else as even I can’t stand to read what I come up with. Even as I type this, I can feel the dead in the pit of my stomach as I realize what I must do if I’m going to be a successful writer. It involves a ton of soul searching and the re-opening of old wounds and buried pain. Looking at all the options before me at the moment, being a writer is the one thing that I do believe has the potential to bring about that very success I’ve both longed for and dreaded my entire life, the success that has eluded me so perfectly and left me feeling as worthless as a worn out shoe most of the time, and this revelation is exactly why I now know why part of me has dreaded it.

For me to succeed, I will have to risk exposing everything I’ve carefully kept to myself all these many years, the pain and anguish, certainly, but also the secret hopes and dreams that I so fear will be met with ridicule, or scorn, or even worse ignored or unnoticed which would truly mean that I, myself, am worthy of nothing more than to be ignored and cast aside, a waste of resources and a drag on society at best.

So the question is, do I go for it? At the moment, my gut tells me I’m going to do it. I must do it. But that’s an easy thought to think on day one, and I’m sure it will be a long hard slog whether it takes weeks, months, or even longer to get anywhere. The writer I need to become was born today. Time will tell whether or not that birth was of any value to anybody but myself (or even for myself, for that matter!), but one way or the other I’ve got to find a way to become more successful in life because I am at the end of my tether as far as being just absolutely sick and fucking tired of being a failure. It’s time to get past that, because I can not maintain my sanity for much longer at this rate. Baring my soul on the page looks to be my salvation, albeit a cure who’s side-effects might just prove worse than the illness of my malaise.