The Sedaris Conundrum

One of the most frightening things about writing is sharing it with others.  Yet, writing not shared often seems pointless.  I have a journal, and sometimes I write in it, but I cannot seem to make a regular habit of it.  At the end of the day, if no one reads what I am writing, I do not care so much to write.  This, in addition to taking the burden of my rants off of people who spend time with me, was one of the reasons to share my writing via a blog.  I had hoped that I would become more comfortable with sharing my writing, and develop an audience to share my writing with.

My audience is slowly growing, which is encouraging.  Gradually, people are leaving more comments (commenting should now be easier to leave as well).  All this, is highly encouraging.  Yet, I feel that I have encountered a conundrum that I imagine every writer faces.  I am calling this conundrum the Sedaris Conundrum.

Anyone who has read David Sedaris probably needs no further explanation.  Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, I will try to paint the picture.  David Sedaris writes wicked funny, autobiographical satire.  Much of it is self-deprecating.  That self-deprecation often incriminates strangers, friends and family.  At some point Sedaris had to think to himself, "I do not really care who reads it, this is damn funny," and went ahead and told a story that may have hurt someone's feelings.  Or been shocking to people who felt close to him.  Or, any number of negative reactions.  This, if I recall an interview correctly, caused tension in the Sedaris Family.  Regardless, Sedaris keeps telling stories.

I post blogs.  Usually, they have a low risk of offending readers.  Some have elevated risk.  Those with high risk are often censored, stashed away for another project, or never make it past the loose ideas, scribbles in a note book, or a rough couple of paragraphs.  Some of these subjects are easy to guess, and can be pretty easily worked around.  Parents and siblings are easy targets for humor, as are ex-partners.  While Corinne may not always be painted in the best light, I love her, her frustrating and often hurtful faults and all.  So, I use material that teases these people because I know that they know me well enough that if they did not want to be part of my occasionally cynical view of the world, they would have gotten out long before now (or when they did).

The other is much more difficult in open forums.  How does one avoid hurting feels based on exclusion?  Most people will find out new information about me when they read my blog.  I find out new things about myself when I write.  My previous blog post was mentally outlined to be funny and light from start to finish.  Something happened, and I revealed information about myself that I had not intended to when I started.  When I edited it, I liked what it said.  So I posted it.  The content was a surprise, even for me.  Albeit, a small surprise.

When writing about the big surprises, difficult topics, or personal information, how does an author not hurt people?  This, is the essence of the Sedaris Conundrum.  I have spoken with other people who write, and they have the same concerns.  We all worry about hurting people, and therefore censor ourselves.  My issue with this is that one of the reasons my marriage ended was that I was tired of censoring myself.  I was tired of presenting the person that I felt like other people wanted me to be.  So, I stopped.  I started telling Corinne who I was.  I started being honest with people close to me.  I started being honest with people I was just meeting.  For the first time, I was living a life where the big surprises, difficult topics and personal information were not hurting me.

One of the ways I was able to do this was remove myself from the people and places that made me censor myself.  I have never been great at keeping in touch, so it is pretty easy for me to walk away and start fresh.  When old people pop back into my life, they may stay for a while, but usually fade out pretty quickly.  This way of living seems pretty common among my peers (to the baby boomers reading, fear not, this is just a different way of living).

Unfortunately, I have begun to build myself a life where anything goes, and I realize that when I sit down to write about it, I must be mindful of my audience.  I imagine some people come to this line and shy away forever.  Others probably vault across it consequences be damned.  I am shooting for something in the middle. I will do my best to ease people into an unapologetic Faux Social, but I imagine that one of the draws of Faux Social is the crazy and unconventional thinking of brian.