Why am I doing this?

I’ve been reading through yet another random set of “tips” about leaving comments, and I’m increasingly unsure why anyone would take it that seriously – one person commented:

“Ok, so we’re all scared to comment I will admit I have been guilty to leaving random comments and now can really work on leaving pertinent information and being more specific. I think maybe (and not making any excuses) I get overwhelmed with trying to read, reply, like, and or comment and need to really scale back.”

I’m obviously a bit of a selfish cow then, because I don’t really think about what I write at all. The only reason I write is because I always have, so it is simply part of a routine of expressing highs and lows. I have done it all my life, then the internet came along, and the idea of having a more visual record than the 12 diaries I’ve written seemed appealing. This isn’t really a diary though, since I do not wish to betray others’ secrets, or in fact any of my own hopes and fears. I just share observations of people and things I am not closely connected to, and am fairly unconcerned with what some random dude who doesn’t even know me thinks of it. So this stuff people write about how they find reading other people’s stuff “stressful” is completely mystifying.

I’ve come in from the pub and am drunkenly watching music videos, wishing I was young again, and passing the time. There’s lots of stuff I’ve thought about as the day has worn on. Like why I bother,  how incredibly bored I am of Technology as a job, what’s so great about Justin Bieber, still stressing about what Black Swan means and why it upsets me so much,  (e.g. maybe Aaronovsky is right and women really are always stuck with either the virgin or whore niche), reading the Evening Standard fashion supplement and wishing I was as rich as Daphne Guinness or as beautiful as Lily Donaldson, thinking about how much I love the very small number of men I have ever loved, enjoying the cold snap, thinking about dancing, worrying about my ability to structure my project’s deliverables at the right level, and musing about why people like me – I’m mostly vain and drained of all energy.

And thinking about whether my idea for a novel works.  I know I want to write about adoption. Society’s view of it is strange; it doesn’t make any sense that it is so much less acceptable than abortion when it is significantly less selfish. Personally I find the idea of not wanting a child strange, not that I would know.  Even if you can’t keep a child, why not give it a life with someone who will treasure it?  There is surely nothing more generous than adoption, whereas abortion seems to me like a miniature suicide, slicing away the kind of random collection of genetic coincidences that for all you know may change the world – the next Gorbachev, Fonteyn, Thatcher, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Nureyev, Einstein. They could all never have existed, and my life would be subtly different as a result.

I suppose I would probably be just as chicken about the social judgement involved in giving a baby away, if I was ever in such a situation.

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