Mental Audiences

It's 1:17 am.  I should take my butt to bed, no doubt.  But I want to say this briefly.

I write less often and with more difficulty that is necessary because I have not settled on a good imaginary audience.  In my mind, I alternate between three audiences: friends with who I believe will add insights I do not have; complete morons who know absolutely nothing; and my future self, who has God-like omniscience on all things "me."

Consequently, writing always seems arduous.  When I want to discuss something with friends, I feel compelled to give complete background about the topic, the origins of my question/thoughts, and my thoughts themselves.  All three parts feel necessary to enable what I want, namely informed commentary with my friends.  My assumption being that they will always provide things I simply cannot.

When I want to express myself, the writing feels even worse!  I either have to breakdown every thought, as though speaking to a moron, or anticipate the mockery of my omniscient future self.  (The arrogance of it all is palpable, even to me, but I suspect everyone struggles with internal audience problems.)  Of course, I don't really assume I am writing to morons.  That's me being overly self-critical.  What I mean is that I assume the reader is intelligent enough to understand any argument I can produce, but the reader is also completely ignorant of me as a person.  Without sufficient background, the reader cannot possibly make true meaning from the literal words.  I do not believe that anything--words, data, phenomena--speaks for itself without context.  So I busy myself, and drone needlessly, trying to provide enough context to make my words make sense so that I can feel that I actually expressed myself.  Otherwise, I would feel that I did little more that paint an unintentional Rorschach text in which readers have no choice but to see themselves thinly veiled in "Glenn-face."

On the other hand, writing for my future self feels simultaneously unnecessary--future me knows me better than present me does and future me can express me to me better too--and self-defeating.  I feel like a child telling an adult the interesting things I learned in school as if I'm the first person on the planet every to learn it.  New to me is not the same as new to everyone.  And new to me is definitely not new to future me.  Future me can only laugh at his embarrassingly ignorant, childish self.

So I guess this is as much a cry for help as it is an expression of self.  I need a new mental audience.  I'm open to suggestions.  I assume the mental audience should be different for professional writing than for personal stuff.  My professional audience is increasingly my version of a first-year graduate student--curious, intelligent, and ignorant of academic precedents like reigning theories and seminal work.  You know the debacle that is my personal audience.  Any suggestions?

Recording a Lesson about Fear and Anxiety

Just recording a lesson here for myself.  After a week of unprecedented productivity, I suddenly couldn't write a single paragraph in 12 hours of trying last night.  I panicked, thinking my grace was gone and the anxiety had won out.  But, thank God, my therapist corrected me.  I am excited about the writing, and I am enjoying the process.  Thus the week of productivity.  It all stopped when I tried to finish (final edits) an article and submit it for publication.  Suddenly, no production.  My therapist said, it's because completing the project introduced my fears of having my writing rejected.  The only way to avoid the correction/rejection process is not to submit.  Of course, that is not an option for a professional academic.

So...I'm shifting my attention to recognizing a few things:

1. Academic review--even the fiercest rejection--is not that bad.  Certainly nothing to panic about.  Review is part of the profession, and it's part of joining any conversation.

2. Academic review, including and especially rejection, will be a tremendous blessing to me because it will reinforce God's attempts to help me walk in humility.

3. Academic review, including and especially rejection, will be a tremendous blessing to me because by confronting and surviving it, I will be far less likely to catastrophise the unknown the next time I finish up and submit an article.

4. Most importantly, academic review, including and especially rejection, will be a tremendous blessing to me because it is a reminder that my self concept, focus, and source for evaluation are not external.  The goal of my life is not to produce memorable and praiseworthy work.  The goal of my life is to manifest the me God created.  That means producing the best work I can as a reflection of who I am, not an attempt to impress the academy or anyone else.