Strategies

To wit: Why does one write? What goes through one when one writes? Is writing an apology? - Perhaps, to write about precisely this question of writing, in a hope to slyly seduce its mystery through self-referentiality. Or perhaps, the author vindicates himself through his writing, which hence becomes his self-purgatory device - writing as an occasion and a confession. (A more playful version of this latter technique has become too commonplace nowadays - I encounter many bloggers where the author talks about himself and his 'experiences',(as if they are all worth talking about), deliberately and quite modestly, exposing his 'follies' and his presumptions, choosing his written piece as an occasion to laugh at himself, all the while conscious that he is appearing more and more endearing and adorable to his unsuspecting reader, and therefore quite immodestly enjoying this feeling of self-gratification). Or perhaps, writing represents the writer's ugly side; he writes to bare his thoughts, to get rid of them, since he cannot bear them - writing as therapy (another cunning strategy, since this writer writes because he feels that his tormenting thoughts are too noble for his current way of life; so instead of changing the way he lives (which is more of a challenge), he opts to expose his thoughts by writing, hoping either that his readers will readily gaze, admire and fathom his inner potentialities and greatness - which he himself does not comprehend - thereby exonerating him; or else, if this does not happen, he would have at the very least compromised the profundity of his thoughts by exposing them and bring them into life). An apology, an occasion, a therapy - 3 varieties of self-deception; Strategies of writing, from the point of view of a writer.