My fear

I share this morning page before fear stops me

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Morning pages 5 January 2025.

IT IS FEAR that's stopping me from becoming a better writer. Fear of saying something that will make me disliked. Fear of tackling topics that require hours of research or that expose my ignorance and general disengagement.

Some fear manifests in ways that don't seem like fear. For instance, often I'll start out thinking, “I'm interested in writing about topic X and I don't want to have an agenda. I don't want to teach anything to anyone. I just find it exciting and I want to explore it.” But I get partway into the process and become all serious. I start preaching, being smart and correct, saying things eloquently and intelligently, splitting things into takeaways, bullet points, insights, and lessons, adding headings, clever headings, and a clever title too, a clever clickable title.

In my nth reading of the draft, I prune extraneous words as I've been told to. But as the piece gets more tightly packed, it starts to sound less and less like me or the thoughts I once had.

Subsequent versions of me keep meddling and tinkering with it. The words. Full editor mode has now been activated. The sentences. I can't stop myself. The paragraphs. I'm getting further and further away from the truth of the first outpouring.

And each subsequent version of me, having exposed himself to the words—to every sentence and every apostrophe—gets overly familiar with what he sees. Familiarity breeds contempt, and contempt mixes with the fear I already had to create a more potent fear, a debilitating, smothering fear, a fear that covers itself up even more for fear of being seen.

Fear-laden fearful fear, holding a pen and thinking he's changing the world, when all he wanted to do was have a bit of fun and entertain himself.

“Fear is the root of bad writing,” said Orwell, who was fearful of using his real name. I say fear is at the root of bad anything. “Fear is the mind killer,” as Herbert knew.

A coach once showed me that every fear, no matter how different, comes down to the fear of death. Take my fear of saying something that'll make me disliked. What would happen if I was disliked?

People wouldn't read my work.

And then what would happen?

People wouldn't see the best of me.

And then?

People wouldn't want to be my friend.

And then?

I wouldn't have any friends.

And then?

I'd end up isolated and lonely.

And then?

I'd probably get depressed.

And then?

I'd be miserable.

And then?

I'd probably eventually kill myself. Feels ridiculous. But there it is. Even in my writing practice, I’m but eight steps from death.

Writing an essay is like living through a full life. You start out young, impressionable, starry eyed, and ready to have fun. But as the project ages and you produce stuff, that stuff needs protecting. Now you have skin in the game. Sunk costs. You're committed. There are things to lose, things to bolster, things to justify and fortify. You become rigid, entrenched. You become conservative. The distant, dizzying starting point now seems childish and naive. Quick! Cover it over with something smart. You don't want them laughing at you. Every move comes from a position of strength, but every word you write is now weaker because of it.

Funny thing. Now that I've just written all that fearlessly, I quite like what I've written. I should post it on my blog.

But what if it's silly? What if people think it's self-indulgent? What if they laugh at me behind my back? What if it confirms suspicions people already had? What if they use it against me in the future? What if it could have been better just with one edit? What if nobody says anything—anything at all? What if it kills my ambition? What if it ruins my reputation? What if it sits like a black mark on my record? What if it pushes people away? What if it ruins my chances? What if it's just me? What if nobody else feels like this? What if there are bigger things going on in the world that people care more about? What if people lose respect for me? What if they lose respect but they don't know how to tell me—they just quietly withdraw? What if there's a way to write without fear, but I just don't know what it is? What if I'm not putting enough effort in? Not spending enough time? Not serious enough about any of this? What if this is all one big bad joke? What will I do then?

Ah fuck it.

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