NERVOUS INTROSPECTION

　
NERVOUS INTROSPECTION
Am I an artist?
Am I a writer?
Why do I write?
What do I write?
What have I been writing?
Let’s have a look at what I have written over the last month.
Why can I not write this evening?
What should a poet be, someone who is filled with things to say and so puts that into poetry? Or is a poet someone who sits there and says’ Now what is it I can write a poem about? I don’t think I like the latter one jot!.
When did I start writing? I mean really writing? Have I started yet? Will I ever?
All this bothers me a great deal.
Do I write because of a wish to be thought of as a writer?
Is that the total some of me and my writing? I hope not.
Am I purely ‘In the business’ of being a poet or a writer? I hope not.
Is it inevitable that I would have written and that I write? I hope so.
It worries me that if I am a natural poet that I should ever dry up.
I’m not worried that I would ever dry up to any length because when I know what I want to write about I do so.
But sometimes I sit there and think’ What’s going on? Why are you not writing? And am I a writer?
And is there anything of worth in what I write? Anything of a consistent style? Any fresh ideas?
Am I writing merely for myself as some diary or sounding board.
I am happy with fallibility and imperfection but I do hope that there is at least something of interest and beauty in what I do or that it has at least some philosophical content which may just make someone think. And if it were to ever heal anybody in any way, well that would be great! Why do I write? Why do I write?……Who am I? I mean really!
I desperately wanted the world to know or at least my immediate community that there are more thoughts in my head than it likely seems from how I present.
And I desperately wanted to deposit at least something to show for having lived.
That’s it I think, those two things, that’s why I write I think.
But am I a writer?
Of course to be a writer is so multi definable.
I have so very much to learn.
Do I have so many styles from poem to poem that I am actually little more than someone who impersonates what it is or at least what it is that I conceptualise to be a poet?
I do so desperately hope not.
I saw a television article today about the poet laureates and felt immediately inferior and irrelevant as though these were real writers enjoying acclaim and reverence and that the world had noticed them and that meanwhile I went on writing my unremarkable writing in deserved silence. And soon after I realised that just because I thought this may be the case did not mean that is was not the case and I suspect strongly that it is and so all that is left for me is to say I shall never stop trying and trying my hardest and that is all that can be expected of me and my poetry will be nothing more or less than a level measure of me and who I have been and who I am and of who I should like to be.
　
When did I stop working out?
Why did I stop working out?
I often fail to see just how it is that my muscles develop so well and so quickly. It seems unrealistic and not parallel to how hard and how long I’ve been working out, but instead of accepting that I MUST have earned it or it wouldn’t be there I actually regard these successes as a hollow victory as though I am in something akin to dream reality. It could just as easily be the following day when I can’t believe how little success I am achieving for all my hard work yet this thought doesn’t torture me like the ’Undue success ’thought And . Its not just working out that has this kind of nervous introspection going on
　
I also got it a lot when I was younger when it came to attracting women.
Is this for real? Does she really actually like me?
Is there a direct correlation between her level of attractiveness and the fact she’s attracted to me or is it meaningless?
In other words is it that given her ready beauty and the way the world cant help spoiling her for it by giving her passes and dividends and compliments and second chances where less striking less pretty looking people would have to make do, is it that she is harder to please and subsequently more selective and does that all mean something of a compliment to me? Or is it that she likes what she likes in a way quite untouched and uninfluenced by her cosmetic exterior? I’ll never ever know and it drives my analytical mind mad as do many other thoughts and considerations, this is what it is to be me.
　
　
What were my sentiments and points of view on this or that topic or issue? What did they used to be a little time ago?
Even in a matter of weeks I am surprised to study the stealthy evolution of how I think but what really fans the flames of my nervous introspective thinking is the question of when is the point at which my mind changes.
If I pick up an old piece of writing I read the sentiments within and I’m just as surprised at how little has changed if that is the case as I am when a lot of change has taken place which says a lot about the nature of me my surprise and the irritation it carries, the point is I want to see the workings that have lead to any result and moreover I want a clear report on which to base my judgement as to how small or large a pat I can give myself on the back for it.
　
　
We, many of us grow up with the naïve belief that we have hold of a unique idea only to learn of its mass distributed homogenous existence, we likewise learn that these ideas require no exposure in order to spread but rather they exist already in the many and not just our individual selves. On this subject I should like to know how many people relate to what I have already written here. But that’s as may be.
　
If I start worrying about terminal illnesses, I start to fancy that I may come by such a ghastly fate and how bad the actual reality of that would be. Then, barely more than moments later I start to obsessively entertain the notion that by envisaging it, I run a risk of materialising it. I really can get myself into a right state over that one and very quickly too. As I’m writing this piece I am visualising something very positive so as to overwhelm any negative imagery which in itself is indicative of how unceasing my neurosis can be. Its really quite humorous from a distance but many things appear different to what they are from distances, don’t they?
　
Fifty million people were killed for example during world war two , millions of which were murdered in cold blood and every single one of these people were overwhelmed by their unfortunate circumstances and would have stayed alive given the chance. So anything that I can say about my own death or my views and attitudes toward my own death are academic inasmuch as I will have no choice in the matter as they all had no choice. So it must be reasonable to conclude or at least to suppose that if human life is so very fragile and precarious and that no amount of unwillingness to die prevents death, particularly premature death, that all the detailed and neurotic concerns of those living, must be, have to be unimportant then? Inasmuch that death’s release would extinguish forever those concerns and that pacing and that fretting and analysing. The implications of all this is that the importance of ones earthly worries must be an illusion in the same way that life’s security and continued entitlement is an illusion the same.
　
　
　
Was it always that I wanted to archive? It was.
Was it always that I wanted to commit to a life of documented creativity? It was.
　
　
　
TIM SANSOM 31 ST MAY 2009