[this post ended up being far much longer than I had thought. So, right below is a table of content with links to the different chapters.]
I was having a kind of writer’s block. I mean, yeah, I’m writing now, but I ‘m doing it a little under the pressure that I have put on me myself. It’s been a few days since my last post, because of this feeling I had that I was somehow now “in charge” of this blog. It felt that way. To add on the garden metaphor I’ve already talked about, it seemed like I had to attend this square of internet I had reclaimed for myself. Otherwise, I would fail as a gardener. Thus, I had to write something. Anything. I had to plant or water another seed.
I thought I was invisible
I should add another thing here, that also disturbed me a little this week (though in a good way, I believe) : my first post got two likes almost instantly. It’s not a lot I know, but yet it’s two more than what I expected, and it’s actually taken me by surprise. Actually I have almost wished i got none. I must say : those were likes from people I absolutely didn’t know. Because, in fact, nobody around me knows about this blog at all. I haven’t talked about it to anybody yet. And I surely haven’t promoted it. So, it came as a total surprise that two person would notice about this blog already. That came so quick. I didn’t expect it to happen so fast. I thought I was invisible. So it has put me off balance a little. Suddenly, it was like the neighbors were looking at me from behind the fence. Neighbors I didn’t even know were there in the first place. And they seemed close. There were already two of them. How many had seen me without me being aware of it? I thought I was as close to invisible one could be on the web, and suddenly there were two pairs of eyes eyeing me, unannounced. And yes, I know. They liked my post. That is a good thing. It’s nice. I know that. But bear with me. It’s almost like I had gone out to practice a dance move for the first time, alone in my backyard, under the cover of the trees, and that I had suddenly heard people clapping behind me. I first felt surprised, then validated, but also it made me feel vulnerable and observed at the same time. A little embarrassed, I could say. I felt green, caught in the act. Off guard. That feeling bumped round my head several times during the last days. I was like under a spell, or maybe it was more like a little, positive (ok right), and tiny (well yeaah…, but still) earth-shake. Enough to make me go like “hum, what’s happened there?”. It shook me off my base a little bit. And I needed some days to recover. To process. To make sense of it. To find the right balance.[I don’t know why this text above is highlighted, and I don’t know how to change it. So be it.]
Extimacy
So, i was thinking about those things when I happen to stumble upon a term I had already encountered before but without paying too much attention : “Extimacy“. It’s the translation of the French “Extimité”, which is a term coined by French psychiatrist Lacan, and also used by Serge Tisseron, another French psychiatrist. The term evokes an intermediary space, or dimension(?), between intimacy and publicness. I’m not going to make a lesson about it here (I couldn’t), one can google it up (here is the french wikipedia page). But it resonates somehow with what I’m doing here. And those two individuals who liked my post made me understand that I had entered that between-space. Without having truly realized it beforehand. So, it freezes me a little on my base. I become conscious of what I’m going to say. Wary, even. I feel shy, a little wild, and cautious. It’s the World Wide Web after all. And i’m not journaling in my own personal paper diary. Yet, I want to be able to express myself out in the open. About all sorts of things. This doesn’t have to be perv or gross. It’s not pornography. It just needs to be authentic. It can be sweet, real, kind. So I need to come at ease with this place. Extimacy, the way I understand it, the way it resonates with me now, is the public displaying of things and thoughts we used to keep private. It’s intimacy in the open. And I have to get used to that. I want to, in fact. No obligation to overshare. Just some of it. I can chose. I think that’s the whole point of this experiment. And that right there is another thing I should talk about.
Wu Wei
Something I also had in mind this week. It’s the reason why I ‘ve added a new mantra page : to remind me of mantras that helped me out several times in the past but that I still tend to forget often : “Stop trying. Just do it.” It’s the way I sum it up but it actually comes from Tao’s Wu Wei. Google it up if you don’t know what it is. So, this is not in fact an experiment or a test. It should not be, contrary to what I was writing a few lines ago. At least I shouldn’t live it like a test. If you want to make a graceful dive in a pool, you shouldn’t think about the temperature of the water. Neither to want to test the water first. You should focus on the dive. So,just dive. Don’t think about it. Be the dive. Don’t let forethoughts holding you back. You don’t need to try first. You don’t need to have it perfect the first time. It’s the art of not trying. To put yourself in that attitude. You’re not here to try. Trying implies a second time. There won’t be one. So be full in the moment. Do everything like it’s a one and only shot. There is no time for practice. You can’t practice for some thing you ‘ll do only once in your life. Apprehend everything like it’s the first time. Stay in the moment. You can’t prepare. You must be there. So, you shouldn’t be too scared either because failure wouldn’t be a total disgrace. You can’t be harsh on yourself if you had no chance to practice. It’s just a yes or no. Either you can or you don’t. Or better said, it’s just the way it is. So, do it or don’t but don’t endlessly weight the options or anticipate the outcome like it’s all on your hands. You have control only on your decision, and attitude on the way. But not on the outcome. So rip that idea off of your shoulders. That burden is not yours to bear. It’s a foreign thought. It comes from the outside, it comes from others. It comes from a want of validation. It comes from living in a society. Don’t think about that now. Be in the moment and shoot. Imagine you’re alone.
These are my first steps in extimacy. Speak of one small step for a man…
(I don’t edit too much here, ’cause well you know, it’s part of the thing. For the moment, at least. Perhaps this will change (I’m actually editing now, as I ‘m reviewing this post). Also, I ‘m a little stone, so not the best time to edit, I’ve learned.(well, hum…I ‘ve trespassed that line again here…)
Deadlines
Anyway, another thing that crossed my mind this week. Deadlines. Man, how I need those. It seems I can’t finish things without setting me up a little trap myself. I function best with short deadlines. Like write a text in 10 minutes. I’ve written some of my best short story beginnings that way. I haven’t finished any, but man, those first paragraphs flow. It gets you on instantly. To me, it feels almost magical. I generally pick up some random word in a dictionnary or online, then set up a clock to 10 minutes, and go. I write as fast as I can, without censoring myself, not lifting the pen off the page before the alarm rings off. If I don’t know what to write, I write that, but that methods frees me more than anything else. It’s not confortable to be under such kind of pressure, so I tend to keep those sessions short. That’s why those texts end up being only beginnings of stories. I don’t give myself enough time to go on further and finish them. So, in a way, it’s meant to fail from the start. And that fact alone lifts the burden off my back. And when I read the story back, it feels almost like someone else has written those words and paragraphs. And that those resonate with the now-reader in me. I don’t remember how it feels while writing them cause the frenzy is bringing me into a state of flow. I’m trying to beat the clock and blurt out as many words as I can during those short 10 minutes. It’s more like a sport, it’s a discipline. And paradoxically, that constraint allows my free voice to show up. Like, I can’t be in control of everything anyway. So, of course, life splashes and erupts from all sides. It shows. My goal is to reach the end of the 10 minutes. It’s a race against the clock, not a creative statement. But it turns out I sound more authentic and fresh when I ‘m on a hurry like that. The real me shows up. That, in fact, may be why it feels a little uncomfortable. Because I have to let go, I must deeply, truly, wholy trust the process. And if it turns bad, if it’s all random thoughts and rambling down on paper, it took me only ten minutes, anyway. Is it not a work of art, a novel idea, a brilliant threads of thoughts? How could it be?
Yet, some times, things, ideas, plan(t)s emerge.
Anyway, what I was trying to say is that I had to force myself a little to start writing this post. To push me into it, I ‘ve told myself “you’re not used to extimacy yet, just trust the process, don’t try, do it, start and write for ten minutes, that’s all you have to do”. And eventually, once I was doing it, I ‘ve pushed a little further than ten minutes. (And note to myself — I should not think of this as something that “I have to do”)
Oxuru Bay Area 