WHY I WRITE #1 : Because I´m Shy and I´d Rather Listen than Talk

 My Korean friend, smart, perfect, beautiful, she once asked me, You are pretty, why don´t you use it? Why are you so shy?  I guffawed in embarrasment. I think she was just being kind. I never got on in life because of looks.  I  have always used intelligence to get what I want.  I admit, I am not the smartest, most passionate tech person in my line of work but I am diligent and determined when the task calls for it and so that is how I  am able to conquer my professional insecurities.

Some people  think I am suplada.  I have a face that´s naturally stern.  I  look Maldita and more Chinese/Korean/Japanese than Pinoy.  When we became friends, a Pinay co-engineer even told me,  akala ko masungit ka, para ka kasing suplada eh.  I am not.  I am an introvert.  So I observe first before adjusting my disposition.  And it takes time for me to open to other people. To show them my crazy side, my sense of humor and anecdotes.   I am also the kind of person who needs her space.  I am not the kind of friend who clings, and seeks constant reassurance.  I do not get worried when close friends and I do not communicate for months or years.  To my mind, they are  just doing their thing, just as I am exploring what to do with my life.  I have  faith in the bonds of close friendships I have formed.   I know that when these friends and I cross paths again, the warmth will still be there and we will have more stories, more experiences to share with each other.

As a writer (or at least someone trying to be one) I enjoy listening to other people´s stories.  To understand where they are coming from. To see life from their punto de vistas.  I am a listener not a talker.  The interviewer not the interviewee.  I share my own stories only when I am asked.  I have no compulsion to brag about what I know, what I have, what I´ve done in the past, or what my plans are for the weekend,  but I am so willing to listen to other people´s dreams, failures, the triumphs in their lives.  This is where I get the juice for my writing.  Here is where I can distill reality, mesh them, compare them with what I know to be true in my own life.   

Writing requires a certain bravery.  To put out my life and other people´s stories out in permanent record.  To let people know my own biases and perceptions, however flawed they may be at times. Every time I write,  there is that tingle of fear.  Like the heebie jeebies we get when we meet a person for the first time and we realize that we like him. This is me.  Do you like me?

On a  recent white heat writing practice, I wrote this :

Screw this.  Screw all the facades we keep to protect ourselves.  I want to write until I am raw and bleeding.  Until I can tell myself, there is nothing more.  I have let all that I am bleed into words.

And so this is my secret  goal.  To write with all that I have. I am not that good of a writer at the moment. But I know that with practice and passion, I´ll get there.