First Blog: Why the @#$% am I doing this???

Why do I write?  I don’t know—why do we eat?  Breathe?  It’s just something I need to do without thinking too much about its origin or purpose, I suppose. 

I have issues—massive, psychology-textbook-imploding issues—so writing is cathartic on some level… but criticism is my kryptonite.  I know that we learn from constructive input, but I still loathe it because it pokes at the rawest part of me, the part that simply longs to just make everyone happy all of the time.  In fact, I have a huge compulsion to satisfy everyone’s needs—friends, family, and strangers alike—over my own.   I probably don’t even know you, but I will do my best to open the most preferable vein for your tastes.

This need has made it extremely difficult for me to cultivate or develop my own voice (which to a real writer is their compass—perhaps this is why my path has been so circuitous.  No sense of voice = no onboard guidance system.)  This bloggy-thing is an exercise in self-exploration, an experiment in trying to get some sense of what I sound like outside of my own head.

Word of warning: I swear like a street rat, rationalize like a philosopher, and try to behave like humanitarian—I am all of these things: vulgar, pragmatic, empathetic.  I contradict myself regularly and it’s a veritable cacophony inside my brain—if you don’t like it, please don’t tell me how much you don’t like it.  Just go read something else. 

…are they gone yet?  Are you still here?  Good.  I’ll try to make it worth your while.