Sometimes, I am afraid of writing. It’s a rational fear, if being scared of starting something you don’t know the end to was a rational thing.
I’m aware of how cowardly I am. It comes from years of being told why I shouldn’t do things and what happens when I do – my mind cannot but see a million possibilities, a million endings that I mostly do not want.
But I am always scared of writing. I am scared of being misunderstood, because I only truly understand myself in writing. I am scared of being too much substance or too much style, because I come from Extremistan (I did not coin that title; Taleb did it and with much more flair) and when I suffice in one I sacrifice the other, because that’s how I am. I am afraid of being unintelligible but frank, because then it would confirm that there’s something wrong with me. I know there’s something wrong with me; I just don’t want to see it in black and white.
But mostly I am afraid of getting carried away with writing, of getting carried away with words – I can feel the alphabet, different from that of either of my ancestors, crawl beneath my skin and infuse with my tissue these many words that taste pleasantly confusing on my tongue; I am not immune to the way they bind to my bones and pour out of me like a stream, on my high, whiny voice or through the first two fingers of both hands, padding out a pattern that becomes what you see right now. It is no stream of consciousness; it is a stream that escapes me and threatens to drown me, and if I lose focus for just one more second – for just one more letter, I promise you, I’ll let it take me.
I am afraid of being lost in the many probable endings, all of them too far and too real for me to see right now.
