"Your primary impulse is going to take you so far."
--Bob Dylan
Writing is among the most sensitive and vulnerable activities we engage in. It's our thoughts laid bare, emotions gestating until we're willing to share them with the wider world, both eager and anxious for the feedback of our community.
We wrestle with imaginary critics in hopes of softening the blow of any actual criticism, sometimes before we even commit a single letter to the page. We over-analyze each word and phrase, striving for an imaginary standard as mercurial as our mood, convinced that we know how the community will respond before we give them an opportunity to.
We finally arrive at a place where that primary impulse has been lost or obscured in a thicket of self-doubt. Keeping this impulse in clear focus is simple in theory, but can be difficult in practice, as it gets at our motives for writing in the first place.
If we write for validation, for self-serving purposes, then our ego can cripple us, blind us to what inspired us to begin with. If we view our writing as simply a gift to share freely, a medium through which we inspire, encourage, and provoke deep, meaningful thought amongst each other, we free ourselves of our parasitic ego. We are liberated to hone in on our primary impulse, that initial spark of inspiration, and pursue a discovery we can all share in.
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