"When you mock a book, you mock a person's soul..."

Today's post is hard to write. 


Well, technically, all posts are hard to write. At least for me. I am mostly into situational humour. So when I actually have to think of something funny of my own: yeah, it's kind of like poking an open wound with a sharp object. I don't need to be funny, of course. But I like to be. There are enough smart, eloquent people blogging on serious issues. I couldn't possibly compare. So I'll just settle for re-tweeting them.


But the world can always use another laugh. After all, prices are rising, the economy has well and truly tanked, the government continues to shaft us, the middle class is virtually gone, so hell, if we don't have laughter left, then what the bloody hell do we have?


Well, and this brings me neatly onto the point of this post, one thing that none of that can take away: our humanity.


I am somewhat of a dichotomy. Not quite the right word but I try to use it where I can. 


There are probably 10 people in the entire world that know me to be a writer. And only 3 of them have ever read my stuff. It's not that I particularly dread exposure. Well, no more than the average person. If the time comes, I am fairly certain I can handle it. Though, again, handle is a subjective term.


No, that's not the reason that I don't shout it from the rooftops. The truth is: those that know me out there in the 'real world' couldn't possibly reconcile who I am with what I write. Or should I say: who they know me to be. And therein lies the problem. Like countless others, who I am is buried underneath a shell. 


The first time that my girlfriend read my writing, she turned to me and said, "Why do you never tell me any of this stuff?"


Because I can't. It's really just that simple. For her, more than anyone, I've tried. 
But you can't unlearn more than twenty years of silence. You can't knock down countless walls.


My outer trappings are a joke. Sarcasm. 'Half-wit,' my friends might say. ;-) When you're forced to hone something as a shield, it becomes a habit you forget to break.


I only started writing just last year. Creative stuff, that is. The internet has been a boon to me in other ways: specifically anonymity. To anyone who doesn't know me, I am a totally clean slate. And that's what writing is to me: a slate. There's no need for pretending. A story doesn't judge or tell me who I need to be. But what it is... is the way I see the world, my innermost thinking--feelings. 


In short, no matter how abstract, those words are me.  


And not the me I have to be: the boss, the friend, the joker. Not the me society dictates. My writing lets me be the child that I used to be... not the adult who's been forced to grow a shell.


It's taken me a while to understand this. Along the way, I've made a million mistakes. So I guess this point is as relevant to me as anyone who might care to agree with me: when you mock a book, you mock a person's soul.