The Doubtful Narcissist..."Was"

There are days I write well and then there are days I sound like one of those awful eassay writing enthusiasts.

But I love writing. I don't know if I'm any good. But I do know that I'm not bad and am reasonably interesting. Most people have encouraged me. Except Mike Andy (name changed to protect privacy). Yes, he writes very well and works for a leading tabloid and has, on more than one occassion asked me to give up the whole thing and admit to myself that I'm quite lousy with the pen. No, I don't hate him for that. No resentment whatsoever. On the contrary, I'm afraid that he may be the only one who's right and all the others, wrong. You see, I don't like bad writers. I firmly believe they should just stop and move on. My fear is I'm one of them and living in denial.

So, for a while I considered just putting an end to the whole lie and stop this obsessed relationship with writing. Only emails.

I'm trying and not succeeding. I can't stop. However, it has taught me a few things. For one, my writing is worth something only when I'm in an intense state of mind and when I feel a heightened sense of emotions. When my mind is a calm and placid place, I'm no good. I'm worthless. Not just with the writing. A satiated and complacent mind to me is a mediocre mind and if I accept living as a candidate of mediocrity, I render myself useless in every sense of the word.

This, in turn, has made me realise that my love for writing has nothing to do with my possession or lack of any literary prowess. Its got everything to do with me, the recluse, trying to escape from being bonded by that mediocrity and in the process, having found a real friend in the pen.

It's a fair deal I think. I won't, like I never have, try and sell you my ideas, my dilemmas, my conflicts, my demons; in other words, my bad writing. I'm beginning to get quite convinced that I am a misanthrope and a happy one at that. My writing, regardless of how good or bad, is probably one of my only tools to continue escaping the clutches of the mediocre mind I so dread. In other words, deem myself worthwhile. So, No, I'm not quite prepared to seperate myself from writing yet.