December 2024
I’ve been thinking a lot about vulnerable writing lately—the kind where you open up about what you think and feel, as scary as that sounds. Before you roll your eyes, I’ll say what I think about it: if you’re writing to express yourself, vulnerable writing is the only kind of writing you have. And letting it out might be a great idea. This hit me while wrestling over whether to share some of my recent writing. My life completely changed this year, and I’ve drawn to share all the beautiful things I’ve discovered about life, emotions, and meaning. But I’ve also felt a lot of self-judgement: “this is so cringe,” “you are so dramatic,” “all the writers you admire don’t write like this,” or “you just want attention.” So this post is why I think that writing vulnerably may actually be a great idea. I’ll start with how it pays to be honest about yourself, and then move onto how this applies to writing.
Hiding what you feel is very hard. One reason is that, even when you carefully manage what you do or say, feelings still leak out through tiny facial expressions, posture, tone of voice, and even what you observe. Another reason is that millions of years of evolution has hardwired us to look for these leaks, consciously or unconsciously, to try and figure out whether someone is safe or not1. So, you might as well embrace your feelings and at least have a say in how you express them.
If you’re a practical person, note that hiding what you feel is not an efficient way of living. You spend a ton of time and energy building a delicate scaffolding around the “bad” parts of you only to find that 1) your imagination did a great job at making them look worse than they actually were, and 2) most people really don’t care. In fact, they might even appreciate your honesty!
None of this self-acceptance stuff means you’re automatically allowed to punch your annoying co-worker because “you’re just accepting your anger.” Or that you should go around trauma-dumping on everyone you meet because you’re “being honest.” There’s real skill in safely expressing emotions and integrating hard experiences. But this post isn’t about all that. It’s about showing why honesty about who you really are is a worthy practice.
Now to the good part: being honest about what you feel is a superpower. There’s a special kind of confidence and attractiveness one radiates when they stop trying to contort themselves into more “acceptable” versions of themselves. One reason for this is that clear understanding of one’s own feelings may be a proxy for competence and emotional stability. And that’s probably a good starting point on also being able to take care of someone else. Another reason may be that complete honesty automatically relaxes you. Once you realize it’s ok to feel and (skillfully) express anything, you stop trying to make things other than what they are. And it’s way more pleasant to be with someone who isn’t constantly tugging at their own existence.
So what does all this mean for writing? Well, recently I’ve felt very self-conscious about much of my writing. This year I went through a breakup, my dad’s death, and a lot of LIFE. And through all this I’ve felt and learned so much that all I want to do is write about love and gratitude and heartbreak and grief. About all the meaning I’ve found. About all the wild woo-woo stuff I’ve discovered in this crazy year. About how alive I feel!
Yet, I often find myself immediately clamping down on this creativity hose. I’m scared that I’ll become a stereotype of a spiritual person that figuratively runs around in circles. That I’m “too young” to be talking about all this. That I’ll get distracted from truly “useful” work. That I’ll get lost in a fractal forest of self-realization and deepening spirituality—always healing but never healed. And look, honestly, this is something I occasionally still worry about. But, it’s also become very clear that this IS who I am right now, whether I like it or not. My heart is spilling out a river of corny shit and I have two choices: 1) I can play an impossible game of whack-a-mole with my feelings or 2) I can surrender to the experience, write about it, maybe something fun will come out.
“Of all that is written, I love only what a man write in his own blood. Write in blood and you will realize that blood is spirit.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Because what else would you write about anyways? How can you really write about anything but that which has shaped your very understanding of reality? There’s no shortage of boring, repetitive writing. Recycled ideas passively absorbed from podcasts, books, or authority figures. Fuck that. Tell me what you really think. If it’s cringey, so what? In fact, if your writing doesn’t rub a couple people the wrong way it’s probably pretty boring. Why should people even read it? What can they expect to get from it? It sits safely inside the boundaries of the acceptable. But the shape of reality cannot be described by limply brushing up against it. You must physically test it, probe it, and find resistance. And if you pull on its loose threads enough you might get a look behind the veil of ideology, and into the raw machinery of reality. Go write something vulnerable. Tell me what YOU really see.
Shoutout to Zac’s ATX Writing Club where I started writing this.
Footnotes
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I suspect this is probably what we refer to as female intuition. When >50% of the population is physically stronger than you, survival greatly depends on your ability to quickly assess someone’s character. ↩