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A Strange Note I left Myself

I don’t know who said it or I’d happy attribute it to them, but I opened up my notes folder in my email and found the following:

The more success you have the more difficult it is to be uninhibited because you come to like the success and are afraid of losing it.

I don’t remember where I was but I do recall a speaker saying so and I thought, “Oh yes, that’s why I’ve become so timid with my blogging.” It’s true, it’s very true, because blogging makes me feel like I’ve connected with so many of you. However with so many others it makes me feel like I’m standing here, tits sagging and wearing granny panties… or even worse my Hanky Pankys and you can see that my ass fell.

It’s so scary sometimes to be… wait for it… my authentic self (I know gag Oprahism disgusting) because with every added reader I’m terrified to lose one. It’s crushing every time someone dismisses us (bloggers) as not worthy of reading, and we smile and keep writing but oh please we’d all be keeping journals if we didn’t want to actually be read. Right?

One of my favorite email subscriptions is to fear.less. They don’t update every day, but when they do I’m spellbound, reading about people overcoming incredible hurdles. When my only hurdles are intrinsic and strangers on the internet I feel a little embarrassed and a little empowered all at once.

12 thoughts on “A Strange Note I left Myself”

  1. Nice.  I’m wrestling with something similar: once I was a person and I knew who I was.  Then I was a blogger and I knew who I was.  But now I’m a brand. Who am I?  What do I look like?  

  2. Two thoughts:

    1) Here is my writing motto or one of them I should say:”If you want to be a great writer you need to be able to live and relive your pain. You have to touch it, feel it and roll around in it. That isn’t hyperbole, it is just how it works.” Every time I write I try to keep that in mind. It is not profound or insightful to say that you can’t please everyone. I could grow my blog far more quickly by getting more aggressive about speaking at conferences and changing my style.But I just don’t know how to do that. The second part of this equation is to have fun. When I have fun with blogging I notice a surge in traffic. People respond positively to it.

    If this ever turns into real work for me I’ll probably hang up my keyboard. I say it constantly, but I really don’t understand why people would do this unless they had fun with it.

  3. My blog was never really me, but then I was in the closet, so nothing up to that point was really me. Since then blogging became difficult as I came out and then began to look at me and wonder about myself. Having not been honest for so long, being honest(or at least trying) was hard for me. It still is sometimes. I’m slowly getting my voice back, or hope I am and am slowly starting to blog more. I hope that as I madge the writing a habit again I can work on honest both to myself s well as in writing.

  4. Interesting blog. I agree it’s difficult to be authentic. There are so many considerations. My grandmother reads my blog and I just blogged about a sex toy party I attended. That blog should have been funnier and more informative. Oh well. I am reading a fascinating book called The Art of War about being a creative person and creative “resistance”. It’s really speaking to me about these types of issues. 

  5. You’ve built a career on being outspoken and controversial. People like that about you and expect it from you. Some may not like it, but for every reader you lose you’ll get 5 more. Don’t puss out now. Don’t doubt yourself now. Don’t water it down now. Just keep swimingswimingswiming. 

  6. Interesting. Google is your friend.  The first good link including the entire quote is from an anonymous poster speaking about Freddie Mercury.  You couldn’t have asked for a more pertinent quote.  

    http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freddie_Mercury

    [b]  What I dug about him so much is he was completely uninhibited as a performer. He just didn’t care. He would just go out and wear what he wanted — nothing mattered. He wasn’t afraid. As a young performer, that’s what you aspire to:  to be able to not care. The more you restrict yourself within the confines of an established art form like jazz, when you become successful at it, it becomes more and more difficult to be uninhibited, because you like the success, you like what’s happening to you.”[/b]

  7. Two things, coming from a non-blogger, so take it for what it’s worth. First I agree with Desiree, people like and expect you to be outspoken and opinionated. Also, sometimes losing readers… isn’t about you. It’s about life getting in the way. And that isn’t usually a permanent loss. Case in point.

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