“Should you make it through the abyss into which you're throwing yourself,” the pseudonymous emailer wrote, “you'll come to see your current emotional exhibitionism (what you excuse as merely being ‘open’) as it is: thoroughly ignoble and queerly muliebral. You'll look back on all such postings with shame, and you'll be right to do so.”
“Noble souls embrace restraint,” he continued, a little further on. “Noble souls don't expose their dirty laundry to the mob. Embrace at least a modicum of nobility for now. You can build on it later.”
Wow. This email you received actually haunts me a bit. “Noble souls embrace restraint.” I think this is the source of the shame I experience in my own cursed writing—I am not, nor will I ever be, a noble soul. I have no restraint. Although I didn’t receive such an email, I did take my blog offline tonight—all 384 posts—in a fit of disgust that I write so non-objectively and can’t seem to do otherwise. I want to be a noble soul like those I read about—instead I’m nothing but an exhibitionist which has no place in trad world anyway.
I wonder if the email was meant as fraternal correction in intention (ie, tough love) or a kind of PR damage control, or just to grind salt in open (no apparent) wounds. There IS something noble in restraint—something I don’t possess and as a result there is a real shame that surrounds writing that follows me everywhere. But it’s a kind of shame not about what you did or didn’t do, but WHO YOU ARE. You didn’t do a shameful thing—you’re a shameful person for doing the thing.
But maybe the emailer-in-question is trying to pull you back from the cliff, or just watching you fall. There’s collateral damage here in 1P5. Audience is fickle and mobbish itself, and can cut your finances at the knees before you can blink for forgetting who you’re writing for. Some new people might take to the more open direction, but many will feel uncomfortable in it and move on. Because it is shameful to a degree, because crises are ugly and you’re in the public eye seemingly self-destructing from their vantage point. Maybe your ‘friend’ is genuinely trying to throw a cloak around your nakedness. Question is if naked is what you want to be. As a writer, it’s all I know. Which is why I think it’s own of the most shameful gifts I possess and I curse it (God forgive me) regularly.
This person is no friend. We've had no previous interactions. And when I looked up his pseudonym, I found him trashing people on other website comment boxes. He comes across as chock full o' hubris and not much else.
As for the rest of your comment, I can only recommend that you spend some time examining your thoughts about this, your gut reactions, your fear that you're being an exhibitionist by writing about who you are and what you think, and try to make sense out of where it's all coming from.
Are you really that guy you're afraid you are? Or are you just afraid you might be? In either case, where does the fear come from? Unmet expectations? External pressure? There's a lot to unpack there.
All I can say about being a writer is that if you want to be any good you need to turn off some of that noisy, self-restricting thought and just take risks. I'm not good at risk taking in almost any other part of my life, but this is the one place I wind up in the (metaphorical) ballpark of base jumping.
Every word true. One of the most powerful articles I've ever read of yours.
This? Is why the 12 steps work.
And, if you like Brene's work on shame, you would live Fr Stephen Freeman's (EO) teachings on it.
Keep being honest, Steve. It gives people like me hope
“Should you make it through the abyss into which you're throwing yourself,” the pseudonymous emailer wrote, “you'll come to see your current emotional exhibitionism (what you excuse as merely being ‘open’) as it is: thoroughly ignoble and queerly muliebral. You'll look back on all such postings with shame, and you'll be right to do so.”
“Noble souls embrace restraint,” he continued, a little further on. “Noble souls don't expose their dirty laundry to the mob. Embrace at least a modicum of nobility for now. You can build on it later.”
Wow. This email you received actually haunts me a bit. “Noble souls embrace restraint.” I think this is the source of the shame I experience in my own cursed writing—I am not, nor will I ever be, a noble soul. I have no restraint. Although I didn’t receive such an email, I did take my blog offline tonight—all 384 posts—in a fit of disgust that I write so non-objectively and can’t seem to do otherwise. I want to be a noble soul like those I read about—instead I’m nothing but an exhibitionist which has no place in trad world anyway.
I wonder if the email was meant as fraternal correction in intention (ie, tough love) or a kind of PR damage control, or just to grind salt in open (no apparent) wounds. There IS something noble in restraint—something I don’t possess and as a result there is a real shame that surrounds writing that follows me everywhere. But it’s a kind of shame not about what you did or didn’t do, but WHO YOU ARE. You didn’t do a shameful thing—you’re a shameful person for doing the thing.
But maybe the emailer-in-question is trying to pull you back from the cliff, or just watching you fall. There’s collateral damage here in 1P5. Audience is fickle and mobbish itself, and can cut your finances at the knees before you can blink for forgetting who you’re writing for. Some new people might take to the more open direction, but many will feel uncomfortable in it and move on. Because it is shameful to a degree, because crises are ugly and you’re in the public eye seemingly self-destructing from their vantage point. Maybe your ‘friend’ is genuinely trying to throw a cloak around your nakedness. Question is if naked is what you want to be. As a writer, it’s all I know. Which is why I think it’s own of the most shameful gifts I possess and I curse it (God forgive me) regularly.
This person is no friend. We've had no previous interactions. And when I looked up his pseudonym, I found him trashing people on other website comment boxes. He comes across as chock full o' hubris and not much else.
As for the rest of your comment, I can only recommend that you spend some time examining your thoughts about this, your gut reactions, your fear that you're being an exhibitionist by writing about who you are and what you think, and try to make sense out of where it's all coming from.
Are you really that guy you're afraid you are? Or are you just afraid you might be? In either case, where does the fear come from? Unmet expectations? External pressure? There's a lot to unpack there.
All I can say about being a writer is that if you want to be any good you need to turn off some of that noisy, self-restricting thought and just take risks. I'm not good at risk taking in almost any other part of my life, but this is the one place I wind up in the (metaphorical) ballpark of base jumping.
Thank you for sharing this. It really is an odd journey, and it's hard for me to believe it's taken me this long to start to see this.