One of the reasons I love writing, or I am compelled to write, is because I have things to say and no one to say them to. I don't mean in the sense of general people but people who would be specifically interested in the kinds of things I want to talk about and specifically also thinking about or reading about the kinds of things I am pondering on. Sometimes when you find such people you feel a bit like milk boiling over. You can't contain your excitement, your exuberance, you want to get it all out. I say this as someone who is rarely excited about the things most people are excited about. I am overpowered. But then you sort of get the impression that it can be too much even for these people. Or maybe my intuition which is always picking up on even minute signals gets that impression and I feel like crowding myself back in. This kind of exchange cannot be timed like your regular small talk so the moment a person looks at their watch, I see it as a signal. Time up. And that sort of makes me wonder if they were ever as absorbed or interested in it at all. It makes me suspect the integrity of the whole thing. It makes me feel like a parent might have been humouring a child — that's all very well and good, it's time for your bed now ;) I come out of it feeling worse than if I had never opened my mouth. That's partly why I do it only rarely and with rare people.

But that brings me back to why I write. It affords me the luxury of saying what I want to say, what is latent in me and wants to get out, in the way I want to say it, as long as it takes me to say it. It gives me space to think through what I am thinking, what I am curious about, what caused me worry, what brought me wonder, what patterns I am noting, what I think they mean, etc etc without worrying about the clock or about whether the other person is genuinely interested in it or whatever. I can maintain the integrity of my thinking process. I suppose academic writing gives me that in one way though it takes a very long time before my ideas can find their way there in a more polished form. This blog gives me more of an immediate, ongoing, unconstrained platform, I would say. I try to write in a way that makes sense to anyone if they should read it, but I am deliberately not trying to cultivate an audience or pander to an audience. I am writing for myself really, because like someone said, that's how I hear myself think, and I am interested in what I think. That I feel also acts as its own barrier for any audience: only if someone is genuinely interested in the kinds of things I think or talk or feel about, they stay; the rest, leave. Either way it doesn't matter.