This is also why I never started a blog, and don’t maintain any social media accounts. Participating in forums like this already drives some self-obsessive behavior (watching for upvotes and proverbial nodding heads), but a pulpit I fear would drive near incessant “audience awareness,” a constant reflection of my ego’s shape as perceived by others. Our social proclivities are to easily supercharged to neuroses with modern technology.
That's funny, my reasoning comes from the opposite end of the ego spectrum - creating a blog or any other kind of social media presence means putting myself out there and inviting attacks on my ego. So I avoid doing so to protect my ego. Anytime I think of doing a writeup of something and sharing online, my subconscious starts thinking about how people will perceive and judge my work and I scram back into my ego shelter. I won't have to face feedback and criticism if no one hears about me or my work :D
Hit me up if you figure this one out. I can't be bothered to get my personal website back up and it's just an nginx configuration away for about a year now.
and i announce that by sharing a post that I'll be taking a break. its kinda like toasting to that I'll stop drinking the next morning. on a serious note tho, I don't really get why he says that poetry places importance on the ego- maybe it's a cultural difference, but a lot of great poems I'm familiar with are about nature and made up characters etc. tho i see how so many really really good poems throughout history are an overblown retelling of what I can only assume is the product of faith and mushrooms (looking at you, Dante)
Or maybe I’m just lazy.