Oct 22, 2022
Write Like Nobody is Reading
“That's the secret of good writing.”
That is what I heard this morning, in the midst of an insomnia episode, watching “Luckiest Girl Alive”. It really stuck with me, to the point where I wanted to put it immediately to the test.
“Write Like Nobody is Reading — That’s the secret of good writing.”
Much like the main character of that film, I went to a school that was not befitting of my financial situation. In all honesty it would have done my family much short-term financial good to just send me to public school. The myriad of social reasons kept me in its counterpart — private school. From the “what will people think” to “you belong in this world” (even if we can't compete with that world) mentality got me into some very prestigious situations.
While always a rebel at my core, I developed the concept of respect at a very early age. And after getting in a couple of school fights and embarrassing my mother once or twice with my filthy mouth and bad attitude… I realized that I simply couldn’t do that to her. She sacrificed too much and was too sweet of a person for me to bring additional shame to her life.
So I was a good girl by the time I reached middle school. I did bad teenager things, but only when nobody was watching. And to this day almost nobody knows how I learned incredibly hard lessons in life. With silence, good behavior, and discipline I became the pride and joy of my family.
But that always comes at a cost.
The cost of not being able to be yourself for the majority of the time you are interacting with others. It's suffocating and all consuming and after years of practice you lose yourself. Watching the movie aforementioned really made me wonder…. Is this a human experience, or a female experience? After little thought I concluded it's a universal experience. Everybody is a victim to expectations. Willing to wager that even galaxies far, far away have similar issues.
And that fact alone… the fact that we live our lives under the watchful eye of other’s expectations (sometimes crafted out of unfounded assumptions and self-criticism) is, to put it bluntly, pathetic. Everything in my life has been suffering tremendously for my lack of authenticity with myself.
Why are we so afraid of what other people think?
(Work, losing the life you build for yourself, disappointing your loved ones, endangering your loved ones… SHHHHH.)
Serendipitously enough — a couple of minutes after the movie was over my husband woke up and our usual morning meme/tiktok sesh brought up a TikTok of a guy asking the following:
“How are people so gratuitously happy?”
“Shit…” I told my self. “How indeed?”
Another dude duet him and said these simple words:
“Just don't give an f*ck”
Easier said than done, but at least for today, I found all the encouragement I needed. Today we don’t give a damn and write like nobody is reading.
One day I will die, and call me arrogant (and I might be biased), but I think it a real shame if nobody got to meet me.
