Grandiose
The issue of my grandiosity has to be the biggest obstacle to my production. I don’t think that’s really revelatory, and I don’t want to present it that way, I just thought that it’d be good to get down on paper. I think far too highly of my abilities and look far too harshly on my failures. I cling to the belief that I am a good writer, a good thinker, a good speaker, but I protect that belief at the expense of publicizing my writing, thinking, or speaking - because I am terrified that others won’t think so. I don’t know if it is really as simple as that - fear - or if there’s nuance that I’m overlooking, but it seems like that’s the primary driver of the conflict.
I remember an argument I had once with my brother, after a family-wide argument that had sent my parents to bed, where he told me plainly that I was an arrogant dick. I didn’t really disagree with him, though I did think the characterization was too harsh, and tried to respond by articulating the question of “why?” Why might it be that I am arrogant? What is the nature of that arrogance, or arrogance in general? To me it seems clear that my arrogance is a defense mechanism - an attempt at self-assurance in the face of a highly critical environment. He didn’t really take to that answer, but maybe someone else will. In any case I want to mark it down.
I think of arrogance, essentially, as a way to protect one’s self-image. If you are in a situation where you are often or intensely criticized, or you believe that you may be, one response is to assert the unimportance of those criticisms. If you are in some way better than those who are criticizing you or to whom you are being compared, then the criticism feels less impactful or hurtful. I don’t say this to let arrogant behavior off the hook, just to observe that generally a concomitant characteristic is self-consciousness. It is precisely the kind of self-doubt that comes from feeling unaccepted that produces the inflation of one’s ego. You have to be special, because if you’re not special then clearly you must be bad.
This is all a long-winded way of saying that my belief that I am special, which I have tried hard to shed, is still holding me back. I’m still clinging to the idea of my potential to avoid the harsh reality of trying and failing. Sometimes I’ll sit down to try to write, but I feel like I need to aim at some kind of transcendental profundity, some grand, illusory truth. And when I inevitably can’t hit that mark, I avoid writing altogether. I know the conventional wisdom is just to put some crap down and see if there are any good pieces to be sifted out of the pile, but I can’t stand to show anybody the imperfect pile.
It feels like the most naked form of exposure to have someone read my writing. I would literally rather be naked, be looked at naked, than be read. And yet at the same time I desperately want to be read. I want to be understood in the way that a reader understands a writer, but I’m terrified of being rejected. I worry that the same old mental habits - defensiveness, arrogance, insensitivity, judgement - will shine through in my words and the person reading will see that behind my outward attempts at politeness, collegiality, and openness, I am miserable and shallow, unable to conceal my dissatisfaction and contempt and enormous entitlement. It feels entitled and indulgent in itself to even consider writing for publication. Why exactly does your voice have value? Why should we listen to you? Why do you think you have the right to say anything? I think there’s too much noise anyway, and what good am I going to do by adding to it? I must be horribly arrogant to think my voice is any more important than all of the ones already out in the air, right? But I think if I don’t find somewhere to put this part of me and my mind, that it will eat me alive. If there is a single person who would enjoy reading me, I think that would be enough.