splagkhna: Sketch of character: I’ve never liked the idea of writing about people. It seems somehow disrespectful. People are large, and mostly invisible.
I don’t mind writing about: my state of mind, which is complex and which I’m constantly misrepresenting (except of course I’m in collusion there); what people do, actions being just as complicated as the actors, and just as misrepresentable; or books, which ditto with a multiplier effect. nice sentence.
The happy suggestion was to write short, separable pieces about people I have known. (To be added later: stuff that happened.) Toss them out onto the graph paper you write on graph paper?. Let them define a field between them. Then try to navigate within that field. One’s one - a field? in the works. (Really, I need to use this blog for something.) Feel free to comment on them as they come. (You should always feel free to comment, unless you are spam.) ok good I may want to comment.
and though the comments from three others do not ring for me, she still replies in a way that does:
Julia - yeah, that’s pretty much what I wanted to say. It’s icky. I used to throw away bank statements without opening them, for the same reason. (”I’ll just guess,” I would say.) clear memory of sth like learning: mc saying 'throw it away' - about an unopened bank statement. you can do that? now I hardly ever open them. and it never feels good, why does it feel bad to open any business envelopes I get?
Mike - it’s true. The center fielder on the office softball team doesn’t need to feel like Kirby Puckett to enjoy themselves. Why does this hobby have to bear so much of a burden? (And who wants to read anything by somebody who has so little grasp of reality as to think they have a chance of being Kirby Puckett? and is so spoiled that they’ll give up playing if they can’t?) Unpleasantly, that’s how it is. I’m struggling for a sense of reality, but it is a struggle.
Pete: thanks for the encouragement. As far as the theoretical future self goes, I’m managing pretty well to avoid reading anything I write, which helps make me less anxious. Next step of course, is to learn to assess it realistically.