What Do You Want? (or My Inner Dialogue Part Two)

So I’m talking to myself again and I say, “Hey me.”
“Oh, you again?”
“What do people want?”
“You mean besides sex, oxygen and the occasional jelly donut?”
“Yeah.”
“How should I know?”
“You’re people, aren’t you? What do you want?”
“Well, right now that jelly donut sounds good.”
“No, seriously. I’ve been writing this blog thing for a couple of months now, but I’m kind of getting stuck. I have a lot of different interests but if I start talking about one thing and not another people will start tuning out.”
“So first, ask yourself ‘Why are you doing this?’ Then ask ‘Are you accomplishing what you set out to do?’ Only then should you ask ‘How can I make it better?'”
“So why am I doing this ?”
“Umm…masochism?”
“Yes, but what else?”
“To practice writing and self-discipline. To experiment with form and structure.”
“To amuse myself with lame jokes?”
“Okay we can work with that. Now how about achievement. Are you doing what you set out to do?”
“I could be more amused but overall I’ll give it a thumbs up.”
“So what are you complaining about?”
“I don’t know. At first I didn’t care if anyone read it. In fact I kind of hoped they didn’t. But now I find myself obsessing over stats, trying to figure out what people want to read about.”
“Ah I think I see the problem. You get stuck when you spend all of your time trying to please other people. You have to write what you want, tell your stories, express your vision.”
“So to hell with other people. Gotcha.”
“Yes. I mean no. Not entirely. Other people’s opinions are important too. You just can’t use them as a replacement for your own ideas.”
“So write what I want except when I shouldn’t. Right. Big help there. So back to my original question, what if I don’t want anything?”
“Welcome to enlightenment, grasshopper?”
“Funny. I mean, what if I don’t know what I want?”
“If you don’t know what you want then who does? Seriously. You know what I mean? All right, what do you want right now and don’t say donut.”
“I want to finish up this post and go to bed.”
“Okay you’re done. Feel better?”
“Yeah I kinda do.”

About Sean Sandulak

Crazed recluse and sociophobe who has taken up writing after failing at everything else. Send pizza.