A look at emotion to celebrate Easter

Well, I went to mass this morning, it was nice. For once, the church was full. As in: "I wouldn't have gotten a seat had I not been 20 minutes early." St. Thomas Apostle has been 1/5 to 1/4 full during all the services I've attended, and to see it with so many people in it gave me a nice feeling.

A friend of mine asked me two questions last night. The first was: "Can I ask you a question?"

When he communicated this inquiry, my heart stopped, my lungs siezed, and I was frightened. When someone asks permission to ask something, it strongly implies that what may come may be difficult to answer. It's not so much a question as a warning, because how are you going to turn someone down when they were so nice about it in the first place?

I joked "You just did" to buy myself some time, told him to go ahead, and braced for whatever was to come.

He asked how I'm able to just open up on this blog and let all my deep, personal, emotion-packed thoughts be made public so easily.

Good question, isn't it?

I thought about it for a good bit of time, frankly, because I wanted to know the answer myself. I decided to elaborate on my answers in this post for I'd bet good money others would like to know, too.

I told him it was for several reasons; one part of it was the arrogance that comes from believing I'm good at writing. It takes a nice chunk of arrogance to do anything in this world, I'm just one of the few who's willing to admit it.

Another part was that I've lost every bit of fear of letting people know my emotions and vulnerabilities due to events that have occured in the past 6 months. Honest to God, I have no natural fear left of having my weaknesses being known by everyone else; and it can be just as dangerous as being unable to feel pain while in a house full of hot stoves. People may think less of me for my thoughts or judge me by my emotions, but I really don't care. There are far, far worse horrors in this world.

Another part is the very meaning of life, that is, the meaning of my life, which is stirring emotion in others with what I create. Writing, photography, pottery, and every other artform I have tried has been done with the intention of making others feel something. As I said a moment ago, I'm not afraid of letting my own feelings run free if they can influence others just a little.

Then there's the old Red Smith adage:

"There is nothing to writing; all you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."

I've found over the years that writing for me is very, very therapeutic when it comes to understanding, well, everything. It used to be that I'd write things down to ease my pain over something or figure out some issue, then keep such writings secret, often destroying them, out of fear of being discovered and embarrassed for thinking a certain way or such.

As I said before, that fear is gone, as is any comfort gained from writing that is kept secret. Writing is a means of communication, things written using paper or pixels are meant to be shared. To keep such things hidden, for me, has become useless.

Thus, I coined the term "Public Bloodletting," for letting such things be made public through the Red Cross bloodmobile that my laptop has become. At least I think I coined it.

Now, I've expressed myself on this blog a great deal, and I've got a bit more expression to do here. But it shall come to an end, of that I am sure. When I get back to Kansas, my life will probably cease to be so interesting, so the self-expression will be taking a backseat fairly soon.

And I intend to then start expressing something new.