I want my writing to ring with truth and presence.
I want not to just write, but
WRITE.
Not tiptoe apologetically or twitter sheepishly.
Not mollycoddle, but manifest.
Not dithering, but damn.
I want to say what I think and feel
like I believe it’s real!
I want to not be guided by the ever-shifting opinions and conventions of the crowd. I do care about connecting with people and trying to build bridges rather than burn them, but it seems to me that my best path for accomplishing that end is not more reserve, but more honest presence.
May I keep whacking away at the weeds of learned smallness, to speed my inner Writer on her path of rising up.
“Insist on yourself; never imitate.
…There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses, or Dante, but different from all these.
…Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”
