Sometime today, I'm not sure exactly when, I realized that the statement at the end of my previous post, the part about you, the reader, holding me accountable to write something every day was a little silly. No, I am not merely backtracking, wimping out, hiding in a corner. I say it's silly because you cannot possibly know whether or not I write every day. You must take my word for it. Or not. I may well be dissembling. And just because I may miss a post here and there doesn't mean I did not write anything at all. After all, not all crap deserves an audience. Some crap perhaps, but certainly not all.
Speaking of crap, I saw an interesting movie tonight, having seen a trailer for it recently, but not really knowing what it was about, nor that it was based on Augusten Burrough's memoir, "Running with Scissors." I'm not saying "Running with Scissors" was crap. Not at all. It was at times funny, most of the time dark and sad, at times enraging, and even a little inspiring. It's just that the word crap served as a useful segue into the rest of this post, away from my silly little admission about my previous post. (May my crap point boldly upwards.) If you've seen the movie you may understand the crap segue.
While I don't know to what extent the story is fictionalized memoir versus creative non-fiction, the truly fucked up family situation reminded me of a little poem by English poet, Philip Larkin, with the grandiose but tongue-in-cheek title, "This Be The Verse."
They fuck you up, your mum and dad
They may not mean to, but they do
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
Brilliant! The frankness of the poem, as also the language used, especially for someone of Larkin's generation, astonished then amazed me. Of course--here's the rub--if we all followed his advice, we'd go extinct. Not a bad thing, perhaps, for the planet and the many beings with whom, or which, we cohabit. I digress.
Putting grand thoughts on the human experiment aside, I shall return to the subject of writing. I know I love writing and, at least in the academic realm, I demonstrated significant facility with the written word. Professors, if you will allow me toot my own horn a little, seemed quite pleased, dare I say impressed, with my writing. If any former instructor of mine, from McMaster University or the University of Toronto, should happen to read my humble blog, please do leave a comment.
I would love to quit my day job (may my employer and coworkers have mercy upon me) and write full time. But as much as I love writing, it sometimes scares the crap out of me. I mean writing for a living scares the crap out of me. But who knows, perhaps someone or something will come along to help me screw my courage to the sticking-place (thanks, Willie!) and give it a shot.
