Musings in Holland, Part III

Tim has effectively brought me to ask the questions I have avoided for so long. Am I such an emotionally needy person, that the prospect of negative criticism is one that I truly can’t come to face with? Do I really want to please everyone?

I consider Tim's words: “the audience doesn't want to hear what you think they want to hear, but your actual thoughts and that some would agree with what you write and that others have a different standing, but that they would still want to hear your point of view anyway [something like that].”

It certainly makes a great deal of sense. Essentially, I should write what comes to my mind and have faith that the audience will approve or disapprove, in its own wisdom.

These days, though, I just can't buy the concept of simply letting myself report "as is", and having total faith that the audience, in its interpretations will not judge me too harshly. Especially when I am overwhelmed with the fiscal questions raised by Jonathan Franzen's elitism. But my psychological need to "please everyone"—as Tim put it so succinctly, is itself a fiscal question. After all, I can't just expect to go the route where I express myself absolutely freely, having little or no regard to the needs and the interests of the audience. All writers are playing to an audience. Art is a vocation and a business. To romanticize being a starving audience is foolish.

Then the question rings into my ears once more:

"Do you want to please everyone?"

It raises another issue. Being perfectly honest in my writings opens a can of warms, and that is the fact of all the gaps there are in my entires. I hate to have to figure out reasons to explain the unexplained absences. In many instances in my life, I am plagued by lousy personal experiences—traumatic encounters involving interpersonal relationships that have soured. These events often cause me to wind up in an emotional tailspin, which is pretty much the situation I have been in for the past several months, as of this writing.

I have to credit Tim. His socratic questioning has been keeping me honest.