A Little Nursing of the Inner Anxiety

I think it helps (it certainly helps me) to analyse why we do the things we do from time to time. And that sentence right there goes to the heart of what I am saying. Having just written it, it is already playing on my inner anxieties. It is words, do you see? And what the mind can make of them. By using the very same words, let me rephrase that sentence into something more like the idea I was trying to portray…

“From time to time I think it helps (it certainly helps me) to analyse why we do the things we do.” There the meaning has completely changed.

That is an example of something which must plague anyone who ever attempts to put their thoughts into writing, with the intent that others might read them. Every sentence we write has the potential to be misconstrued by someone else – even setting aside the further complications introduced in cases where language translation may be necessary – and especially where a less than fluent or a low-level of understanding of the language in which it is written is held by those who may try to read it. It is the writer’s peril. And how far does the writer need to go to ensure a correct understanding of what they write?

Of importance in any written communication, such considerations may be said to be of vital importance in cases where a writer deals with imparting to others his or her perceptions of what is true. And particularly in matters considered to be ‘edgy’ or whose borders (and therefore what lies within them) are obscured by some manufactured ‘fog’ which hinders any full understanding.

And since the subject matters which I for whatever reason (which is always to get at the truth of things that may have been deliberately misrepresented and pretty much always on ‘edgy’ subjects) have chosen to pursue in my writings, I live in constant anxiety that what I say may be misconstrued by readers or that they may contain content which even though I believe it to be so at the time, may prove to not be entirely the truth.

This is the truth writers curse, the effects of which we constantly try to either eradicate or minimise. Knowing always that we are imperfect beings whose knowledge, understandings and intuitions also fail to meet that standard. And we either live with that (assuming we have a conscience) or simply give up writing altogether.

There is no salve or cure for the condition, other than constant practice and vigilance toward improvement, but talking about it does help.