Inside Stories

If I wrote what’s really on my mind this morning, people who read it might feel compelled to alert the authorities that they think I might be suicidal. I am not. If I wrote what’s bothering me, I might be dragged away for my own protection and for the protection of anyone within reach of my influence or my voice. I would have to work to convince them that I’m not a danger to myself and I’m not a danger, at least physically, to anyone else.

After reading, people might wonder whether they are in some way the causes of my angst. They are not. They are not to blame. I, alone, am responsible for the jumble of exposed nerves that crackle like bare electric wires on wet streets. But I can understand how my demeanor, both in words and in reality, might suggest responsibility falls to someone else; my reaction to the world around me might make it appear so, though that’s not it at all. The responsibility is all mine. It’s all driven by those sparking wires touching conductive emotional surfaces.

It’s fortunate that most of us have limited spheres of influence. Otherwise, our personal volcanic eruptions and our magnitude 8.0 mindquakes could cause substantial intellectual and emotional damage in a broad area. Our hurricane-force expressions of anger and offenses taken could be far more damaging if we mattered to the wider world. But, for the most part, we live within our own tiny circles; our own tiny little minds whose limits do not exceed the boundaries of our own skulls. We live in private little worlds that, to us, seem enormous but to those around us are invisible. The torrential rains and tectonic shifts and  fierce winds are, in fact, holograms of artificial events only we can see.

One day, I will gather the shards of my unseen internal emotional outbursts and try to piece them together so that they might make some sense. They could become inside stories of the creature who writes all of this crap but who can’t seem to bring himself to write the real stories that matter. Ultimately, though, the stories matter only to me, I suppose. And that means they don’t really matter much at all. They just take up space that could be used for more productive things. Spikes and spirals. Spikes and spirals. I get so damned tired of spikes and spirals.

About John Swinburn

"Love not what you are but what you may become."― Miguel de Cervantes
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4 Responses to Inside Stories

  1. Thanks, “Hopester.” You do, as well.

  2. Thanks very much, Meg. I appreciate your words of encouragement.

  3. kozimeg says:

    John, I’m awe of your early-morning writing. Of course your story matters. You matter to me. My life is richer for knowing you. I just say keep up the telling of your story, not matter if it’s just in bits and pieces, Meg

  4. Hopester says:

    This story matters. You matter.

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