Narrowing Down

Posted on Substack June 14, 2023.

I’ve always been one to “bite off more than I can chew.”

I choose things to write about that could take entire books to adequately address. In a single sentence, I’m all over the place. I write as if everything is up to me to solve.

There are a lot of important things to write about. However, I am not an expert on anything at all. I can only speak with authority on my own experiences. And my experience has been so limited.

It’s interesting to people because it has been extremely limited.

This means I have to narrow down my topics. I can’t write with expertise about most things. I must write about my own experiences.

The problem is that my own experience is troubling, both for me and for my readers. I have PTSD from my experiences, and writing about them is triggering.

Nevertheless, it has become my job to write about my experiences, because I don’t have any other skills to use to support myself. My body can’t handle manual labor, and I don’t have the education to do other sedentary work.

So I look longingly at the topics I wish I knew enough to write about: climate change, inequality, the prison industrial complex, capitalism…the list goes on and on.

Then I look inward and continue writing about my own trauma.