Firm Persuasions
Writing a post announcing that you’re starting a newsletter and then writing a post to start that newsletter are apparently different kettles of fish. The thrill of seeing your friends, acquaintances and followers exuberantly voicing their support for this endeavor quickly gives way to the terror and performance anxiety of actually having to come up with something to say.
There are at least two aspects to this fear. The first, and most obvious, is the fear that I don’t really have much worth saying. If that’s the case it will be somewhat embarrassing, but there’s little downside past that. It’s entirely possible I may not even notice that I have nothing worth saying, and so even embarrassment will pass me by without a second look.
The second fear is less likely to come to fruition, but more intimidating if it does. What if I really DO have something worth saying and have to face unpleasant consequences for saying it?
Why should I fear this? Well, I’m a social animal. My survival and thriving depends to an uncomfortable degree on the acceptance and support I receive from the tribe and community I’m enmeshed with. It’s not simply that I want people to like me, it’s that my ability to navigate the complex environment I live in is not sufficient without the assistance and approval of a whole mess of people with whom I share that environment.
This presents a real challenge to anyone who wants to write in public.
Particularly anyone writing under their own name.
Particularly anyone who wants to write anything remotely interesting.
Particularly anyone whose primary literary influences are visionary poets, mystics, converted Catholic polemicists, sci-fi writers and Old Testament Prophets.
Oops.
Most people dislike friction and conflict to some extent, but I suspect I’m even a little more conflict averse than most. Paradoxically, I’m certain the driving force behind my lifelong love for pro-wrestling, combat sports, action cinema and martial arts has something to do with a near phobic response I have always felt in the presence of strife. I’m obsessed and terrified by the failure of diplomacy. What happens when people stop being polite and start getting real?
Whenever someone disagrees with me stridently, a feeling wells up below my sternum that says “this could be it. Are you ready to die?”
The answer invariably comes up, somatically experienced somewhere a little higher- between the breastbone and the throat: “If it’s gonna be today. Make it a good show.”
It’s been like this for as long as I can remember.
I used to feel small and brittle as a child. I was a sensitive, earnest little boy. I have always sensed how much more there is of the World than there is of me, and so I shied away from engaging too deeply with it from the fear of that Moreness.
…. And yet…
Part of me has always loved a good rumble. I’ve always felt a little bigger and a little more alive when I catch the taste of my own blood in my mouth.
My maternal grandmother- a sweet, kind and generous woman given to uproarious laughter; a person who ALWAYS makes time to listen to anyone who needs to talk and has no one else to talk to taught me the family mysteries early.
“Matthew, let me tell you something…if you make one of ‘em see they own blood, the rest of ‘em’ll probably run away.” “Matthew...I told her this… ‘If you hit me once, you better kill me….’ I meant it too…”
I was taught early that this was the family way. If someone hits me once, they had better kill me. It’s still the advice I would give anyone who plans on hitting me.
I’m not saying I don’t fear being punched or attacked or beaten up. I certainly do. I’m not an MMA fighter or a tactical operator of any kind. I’m just… a guy…
The thing is though, anxiety is lessened when there’s clearly something to DO about whatever is vexing you. I’ve spent enough time exploring my fear of physical conflict that my anxiety around it is manageable.
The fear I experience when pondering the potential negative consequences of saying what I really think are different. If people think I’m crazy or stupid that could be bad. That could affect my ability to earn a living or get along in my community. That’s scary enough, but it could be worse still.
What if they think I’m worse than crazy or stupid? What if I’m evil and must be stopped?
It’s not without precedent.
Governments have sent people to gulags and camps for thinking and saying some of the things I think and say. Institutions set up to advance the interests of the very religious tradition that I myself identify with have literally BURNED PEOPLE ALIVE for thinking and saying things that I think and say.
That all seems worse than a punch in the face.
Even if it doesn’t go as far as all that, there’s still the question of honor.
It’s unlikely that anyone who takes issue with something I say is going to just haul off and take a swing at me these days. They might complain to my manager or to the HR department. They might call the cops or their attorney. They might write a letter to the local paper. Worse yet, they might put out a 15 slide Instagram story about how problematic I am.
Honor is an antiquated concept these days, a ridiculous patriarchal anachronism that has no place in a society ruled by laws (hopefully, someday when I find my voice and am rid of all the latent chickenshitness the fear of the Gulag has left me with I’ll find the will and dexterity to argue that this is EXACTLY wrong).
So. Here I find myself.
A two-bit Lieutenant Worf, feeling a little funky and out of place in my Starfleet uniform, sipping a cup of Earl Grey on the Captain’s recommendation. My “darkest” impulses only ever finding expression on the holodeck, secretly hoping for the Cardassians to start some shit just to give my fight-or-flight circuitry something to do other than “fly.”
I’m writing, and that presents a problem. If I tell you what I really think, I might get in trouble. If I don’t, I might bore you to tears.
The prophet Isaiah told Blake over dinner one night,
“as I was then perswaded, & remain confirm'd; that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences but wrote. Then I asked: does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it so? He replied. All poets believe that it does, & in ages of imagination this firm perswasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm perswasion of any thing.”
This could all be pointless posturing. I do not yet know if I am capable of firm perswasions, though that is certainly how it feels. One way or another though, I intend to find out.
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My dear friend Bryan could use some help if you have the means. He’s not weird about graciously receiving your positive thoughts and prayers either, like some of the galaxy brains of today might be.