A Man in Love, does not write

Someone reminded me that it’s been a while since I wrote on my Substack. While that is true, I have actually been writing on other medium. The reason why I have not written here is because, due to a self imposed rigid maxim, there’s only a particular kind of writing that goes on my Substack. One where I am forced to confront the output of my writing and reread them. The other places where I write are a result of the vagaries of my meandering thoughts per time. I don’t reread those before posting because they come from an air of authority, one wrought by innocence and not through superposition. What I write here has to survive a second look. What I write elsewhere only has to survive the moment it was felt.

It is easy to write about technology, I have spent over two decades in that industry and never for once write about it as a seasoned sage, instead, I write from my unique lens. When it’s yours, no one can dictate how you dish it, you own the notes, the recipe, so it’s easy to write things wrapped safely in the cocoon of my viewpoint. Oh, and because I write from my experiences and thoughts into that industry, it’s easy to connect because it is never a claim on the truth. The world will always connect with something new and honest, even if not correct, but never with anything synthetic, unless, of course, it has to do with Philistine pleasures.

It’s easy to post my poems about random things, as I can hide under the umbrella of poetic expression to absolve myself from the plot and abrogate any attempt to tie me to them. A writer, as I always say in many rebuttals, must be separated from the art, for to do otherwise is to give form to an ethereal force. The poem, never the writer, must take the blame for whatever it confesses. The writer is a ghost who must not be grieved like a man.

In my personal maxim of writing, Substack is where I am forced to do a different kind of writing, one that soul searches and forces itself to deliver value, a message, a reckoning, and outcome that I must care about. To do that kind of writing however, one must have a feeling of emptiness, a longing to be seen, a proclivity for applause. These are valid emotional beings, but only a man out of love desires them, a man missing something. I have come to realize that writing, for the man, is a cover for the things he cannot verbalize, the feelings he must not own, an attempt to run from his shadow. Writing is how the strong man says, I’ve got this. It’s how he rationalizes every fiasco, his own res ipsa loquitur.

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When a man writes, he is not trying to find expression, instead, he is running from expression. He straddles between wanting to be seen by the right audience, and not wanting to be seen by the wrong audience, most times, the straddling occur without a clear definition of the audience and so, he wanders. He wants the right eyes to find him and the wrong eyes to pass over him. To such a man, there is a difference between being afraid of losing something and being afraid of the person who might take it.

But the man in love is not so. As described in the Psalms, he is like a tree planted by the rivers of water, he cares not about the seasons for he will always bear fruit, his roots connected to an unending source of vitality. When a man is surrounded by love within and without, he does not need to run from expression. He is surrounded by the warmth of always-open arms, the soothing voice that never speaks, that kind of man does not think about writing seriously. He is too busy and distracted in the real world to focus on mapping out the usurpations of the one his pen creates. He does not need the pen to hold his shape. The man is outside, living in the very thing his writings used to only gesture at.

But don’t cry for me Argentina, the truth is, I never left you. You were there for me through my wild days, the days of mad existence, and now, I am here to repay the favor. In the one year since I last wrote, I have been surrounded by the rarest forms of love, with paths that lead to warmth and safety that I have not felt the need to run away from expression. I have been standing in the weather instead of just writing letters about it.

Hypocritically, I will write, I will pronounce, sometimes you may agree, other times, you may not. Feel free to counter, argue fiercely, you will not hurt my feelings, but as you do so, remember my new dictum…

…a man in love, does not write.