It’s weird when people mention my blog to me in real life. I was motivated to start a blog for God know’s what reason and now that people, my friends that I pester mainly, actually read my blog I’ve started to think about answers to their questions.
When I recently watched Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie talking about her book ‘Americanah’, she said she never really knows what to say to people about her inspiration for things in her books because they always kind of just happen. And that pretty much sums up how I feel about this blog.
That’s why it weirds me out when people talk to me about my blog because it’s something so much more than I can understand. Like, I never really know the what to this question. I can always explain to some extent what it means in the specific context but beyond that, qui sais?
I am rather Socratic in that I’ve stop trying to come up with overarching ideas and shit and all I really care about is how I can be a good person. How can I stop wrong and bad things from happening to me and the people I care about?
I like to look at this in a sort of semi-Stoic semi-Epicurean view. The stoic part of me says that we can never truly understand the world just our place in it. You will never explain why things happen, all you can do is understand that unpredictable things happen – that’s it.
The epicurean side of me says that I will do whatever I can to protect the people I want to protect. I will make life as comfortable as possible for the people who I can.
But that’s just overarching stuff which, in my opinion, is pretty far separated from everyday life. It is hard to anchor stoicism in a quotidian existence because it’s just not that easy to be devoid of emotions – maybe that’s the point. And epicureans are pretty near gluttons or at least highly hedonistic.
That’s why when people talk to me about this blog it’s weird. It’s like emotions coming out to play for a stoic – it just feels weird. I never thought anyone would read this blog, and when I look at who reads this, it’s usually someone overseas. I never expect my readers to be down the block,to be as real as they are when they come up and ask me about this thing.
I have avoided using overly negative language because it is not a bad thing, these interactions, but they are still weird, very weird. They confirm my existence as a writer in a way that has not happened before. They show me that the keystrokes I make actually matter, they actually affect someone besides just myself. That’s what I really like the most about it, the connection I have with all these people because I imagine being in Nepal or Russia and someone coming up to me and saying “I really liked how you phrased that,” or “I have been trying to say that somehow for awhile now, thanks,”.
It’s fucking magical.
-Clay
Clayton Tomlinson 