Snowflakes and deep truths.

I want my words to be pretty.  I want them to be articulate and beautiful--shimmering pieces of wisdom and profound truth.  It's impossible to write with that purpose, though.  The muse can be pretty fickle; she catches you off guard.

Inspiration doesn't come when you're sitting in front of a computer or notebook, scanning your brain for things you know to be real.  It comes at 4 AM when you're laying in bed on the precipice of sleep.  It comes on an empty, rolling highway when the light hits the cornfields in a way that makes everything look golden and hopeful.  It comes when you allow yourself to be quiet--when you are able to connect to the voice inside that lives simultaneously in your heart and mind.

At least that's how it is for me.

I've never started writing anything with a clear endpoint or thesis.  I have no idea where any given piece of prose or poetry will take me, and that's why it's so therapeutic.  There is this sense that it's not really me writing it--not me as I know myself, anyway.  When I am compelled to write, it's as if the words are coming from my intrinsic self--straight from my soul.  They uncoil themselves from my ribcage, taking concrete shape sometime after they've been splayed onto the paper or screen.  A lot of the time, I feel like they are escaping---like there is some kind of poison inside of me and the words are drawing it out as they appear before my eyes.

When I try to write something grand and dazzling, when I try to weave golden threads out of contrite, pretentious bullshit, the words never come from that place.  Instead, they come from a place of self-consciousness and fear of judgment.  They come from a place of self-defense, from a desire to be vulnerable but only in a way that is safe... They aren't profound or powerful or especially striking because there's no emotion behind them.

Real beauty comes from rawness and realness and honesty.  Real beauty is scary and messy.  Real beauty is easy to connect to because it makes us feel like we aren't alone.

I am slowly but surely learning that the human experience is universal--that people aren't the terminally unique snowflakes we make them out to be.  And I want you to know, that's tremendous.

The things about myself that I am the most scared of, that I'm the most ashamed of, are things that exist in the hearts and minds of thousands of other people in the world.   The things I don't want to admit to myself are the same things thousands of other people are repressing.  We all feel like misfit toys sometimes--we all become convinced that we're broken or defective or unusual because we all have something inside that scares us, some deep truth that we don't want to face.

But as I write--as I share the deep, dark things about myself that fill me with shame and insecurity and fear--I get amazing feedback.

I have people reaching out to me saying, "Hey, that monster that lives under your bed....well, he shows up at my house some nights.  He scares me, too."

I'm not alone in my shame or fear.  Neither are you.

And so I'll keep showing it to you.  I'll keep digging deeper and deeper into that strange darkness inside of me because I see now that we share it.  It's ours.

The most isolating thing about that darkness is that we're desperate to hide it--to stow it away and keep it only for ourselves.  Well, I say "Fuck That".  Take my hand.  Let's figure this out together.