THE DIFFICULTY OF PUBLIC WRITING

Sometimes it is difficult to tell just what one ought to write when writing publicly. Does one discuss the remarkable difference that can be made in one’s life by ceasing to see a bad doctor and encountering, on a rainy afternoon, one who actually engages you and then, better yet, helps to develop a meaningful course of action? Does one write about the novelty of whistling in the morning on the way to a computer science class? Or would this be crossing a line to the personal? Should I wonder if there is someone out there who should not know such things?

These questions, I must admit, are difficult for me. As an artist I have spent much of my career mining through my experiences to find points of departure for larger dialogues, but in the scope of the art world that is somehow safe, and at times expected – ah for all those essays I have read over the years declaring some distillation of Self as the essence of art. Here though, in this form that awkwardly straddles that fuzzy demarcation between the public and the private, I am uncertain. Here I strain for the ambiguous phrasing and veiled implication, forms that are not natural to me in my artistic practice where I tend to bury the subtleties beneath an avalanche of overloaded signification.

There are so many parts of one’s life that venture forth into wider circumstances, that allow, foster, or even demand broader consideration and/or speculation, that may attempt to divest themselves of their originary conditions to become part of a more general discourse, but yet they perpetually remain themselves, and, as such, must carefully approach that public/private barrier and come to a self-determination as to where they shall forever reside.

But how does one decide what to say, what to hint at, what to leave unsaid, simply between the lines, and what to omit entirely? Indeed, how does one discuss events later that same day that draw one to sit on a couch and placate oneself with a plate of Hob Nobs and a mug full of Irish Breakfast tea? Is this a condition of writing that it must be either public or private in order to speak of these things, in order to speak at all? But I want to speak of these things, to you dear reader, but do not know how. Our relationship still remains so uncertain – can I trust you? Are you really listening? Do you actually care? Or, perhaps more to the point, do I care if you do, in fact, care?

We do not know each other, yet I am writing for you and you have taken these moments to read of me, or, better yet, to read me. I do not want to tell you about my day – you are a stranger to me – but I wish to speak to you of the ebb and flow of comfort and trepidation. The problem is that I do not yet know how to do so in this liminal space that we, together, occupy.

Hence, I must perhaps reconcile myself to leave these things unsaid, to let them settle into irresolution. If only I could trust you, dear unknown reader, or if I could, indeed, trust myself, today would find its way to one side or another, reconcile itself to be shared or closely embraced, but for the moment neither set of language seems adequate, and today – like this writing – shall have to [for the time being ] remain, like myself, in between.