The Anonymous Blogger

I’ve been toying with the idea of starting another blog. One that’s a bit more public. One where I can share the things I write with the people closest to me.

You see, I’ve managed for the past few years to keep my writing / blogging activities completely anonymous and unknown especially to the peoples closest to me. I did this for a few reasons.

#1 I treated blogging purely as an outlet to rant and vent… mostly about the people and things closest to me.
#2 I am fully convinced that I write terribly about a lot of long winded crap and am just too shy to share it.
#3 I don’t actually have anything of interest to say to people… or at least I don’t think they would be.

After all this while of writing, I still think my writing is not quite up to par especially when compared to so many awesome bloggers / writers out there. Some writers write in such concise but profound ways that it just cuts right through to the heart of the matter. Other writers write with such passion, vividness and eloquence that it sounds more like poetry than prose. Every time I read their words, I am thrilled and awed, yet completely intimidated at the same time. 

But having faithfully and consistently stuck to blogging for so long, I have sort grown to love the act of writing. I find satisfaction in it… joy even - to take a thought or idea in my head and string it together into words and sentences. I suspect it’s a joy all self confessed writers eventually find. When I realized that writing means a lot more to me now that when I first started, my first inclination was to share it with those closest to me. I think that’s a natural human tendency – to share the things that are precious to us with the ones precious to us. But a few things have been holding me back.

Terrified – of overexposure

With me at least, writing takes a lot out of you. When you write something, you are essentially sharing a part of yourself. And I know only know one way of writing – and that is writing from the heart. I’m afraid that I will end up sharing too much with too many people. I don’t think I’m daring enough to bare my heart for the general public. I think sharing publicly what are in essence private thoughts and feelings takes a lot of guts. I really respect those who do so.

Terrified – of rejection

A secret comfort I have in writing anonymously is that I have no fear of rejection simply because I have no expectations. People who don’t like it simply move on. Those who do, stay. I don’t know the statistics.. but I know ignorance is bliss in this case. I think a part of me fears that when I show it to the people around me, that they will read it… and find it completely unimpressive.. or worse… rubbish. And since writing has become such an integral part of my means of expression, I don’t know if I can handle that kind of rejection. The fraction of things I have attempted to share on Facebook have been received with mix responses. Encouragingly, some like it and find it inspiring or thoughtful. But not everyone had nice things to say…. One friend told me they just didn’t know how to respond to writing like that.. another told me that it’s too long winded and intense, and someone else just told me flat out – it’s not that good.

There are many other small reasons, but I guess these 2 are the biggest ones. It’s safer to just stick this way and pretend I’m sort of an anonymous diamond in the rough that has every potential of becoming as popular and as awesome as this guy (link) than to try and find out that I really am not. So strong are the chains of fear that keep us from reaching our full potential – or at least to try to. By the way, I really really admire his work. 

Having all this fears aside, I still find myself wanting to share my writings (as awesome or as lousy as they are) with the people close to me at the very least. Like a child who eagerly shows his drawings to his parents; they don’t expect to be told that they’re a Picaso in the making; they just want to share a piece of themselves that they have deposited into their artwork with others. The same child then carries his work closely, everywhere he goes, because it’s important to him. But he shows it to a few choice people… because unlike his family, others may reject his work and call it ugly. That’s how I feel.

But I’m not even as brave as this child. Because hiding behind the face of anonymity, I have shown my work to almost no one. I have been withholding a part of myself from them.. which I guess isn’t entirely fair. They get to share every other aspect of my life. Why do I now withhold this from them? Maybe they deserve to know this part of me too. If not them, then who?

Anyway, I haven’t figured it out yet… I may not even do it at all. If I do start a blog, it will have to be different from what I do here. It will not be so intimate. It will not be so fluid. It will not be completely anonymous. That much I have figured out.

The rest… I dunno… let me sit on it a while.