UPDATE FROM THE FUTURE: Yeah, this post really sucks. It's a little bit too incoherent and edgy. I'm pretty embarassed about it. That's why I'm adding this disclaimer here that I'm disowning the past version of me that wrote this. But I'm going to keep this updated for posterity.
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For the longest time, I didn't really understand what self-expression was. It was sort of an adjective people used when describing why they did some sort of quirky/liberal-artsy hobby. Like— if someone was asked why they played piano or sketched, they'd respond by saying it was a form of self-expression. And I kind of absorbed the word into my vocabulary without fully understanding what it meant. It was a B.S. word that you'd use when answering school forms asking why you did your hobby.
I didn't think too hard about it. I guess the main thing that confused me was the idea of how most self-expression activities were independent, and in my mind, any form of expression required an audience, someone to be expressed to. Take playing piano, photography, or even gardening. These are all things that that could be considered "modes of self-expression," but who was the audience being expressed to? All these activities were usually done alone. I never resolved my dilemma, but again, I didn't think too hard about it.
Years passed, and I became a teenager and entered high school. My high school years were quiet for the most part. But there were moments of angst that every teenager experiences, and I guess I wasn't too sure how to deal with them. I think the way a typical person deals with this, the way a normal person should deal with it, is by talking it out with friends.
But that's not the kind of friend I wanted to be, and I didn't like burdening my problems on other people. I didn't want to come off as whiney or annoying. Also, very often these problems might be caused by another person, and at the time I avoided gossip like the plague (for various reasons I won't go into yet), so I didn't want to say bad things about other people, even in private conversations with friends.
So how did I deal with my angst? I guess I buried it deep down within myself and tried my best to not let it affect me. I'd escape reality with League of Legends, YouTube, or Fanfiction. I distinctly remember sometimes just laying on the white carpeted ground of my room, staring into the ceiling in a uniquely teenage despair. And I think that because of my unhealthy coping mechanisms, I was moody all the time, though I hid it from my friends.
Of course, at the time, I had no idea why I felt so dramatic. I think during my moments of self-awareness I just assumed it was just puberty. And to be fair, puberty probably played no small part.
So that brings me to now: in between the end of high school and the start of college. I'm still mildly angsty, but I've begun to grow as a person. I'm weaning myself off the bad habits I've accrued: you know, League of Legends and whatnot, so I can't escape into them anymore.
So now I'm here, and I've finally realized what self-expression is for. It's for working through your feelings and thoughts by yourself. It's for processing emotions. It's for expressing yourself when expressing things to other people is too hard.
Though there's the argument that maybe I shouldn't work out my feelings by myself, and it's important to process things with friends. And maybe that's true. But it's difficult to be that vulnerable and honest with people even if they're you're closest friends. And I imagine that self-expression is the next best thing.
So when someone's saying they play piano as a form of self-expression, they're putting their heart into their piano pieces. They play with emotion and let their feelings out. And this sounds a little cliche, but it really works wonders for your mood. At least for me, this website, my preferred mode of self-expression, helps me feel significantly better.
I think writing to an audience who knows me helps me feel better after each piece, knowing that at least one of my friends probably read it. So the main audience of this blog (I don't want to call this a blog, but yeah, this is a blog) is mostly close friends. Those are the only people who should know about this website because they're the only people I'm going to tell it to. And I'm writing this post as I'm leaving high school, so I kinda feel okay just telling a lot of people about this blog. There's a good chance that if someone makes fun of me for the stuff I write here, I'm never going to see them again. Though I'm sure other folks are going to see this. Whether it be friends of a friend being told about it or just random internet strangers stumbling here, I don't really mind. But please don't feel offended that you're not the intended audience.
And honestly, I'm also writing this blog for myself. It's a mode of self-expression after all. And I'm using this to let off steam and work out feelings. So don't assume all the pieces will be coherent. Don't assume that anything is going to be nicely edited with clean grammar or that I even read it over after I wrote it.
And also, I'm using this blog to say things that are too hard to say to people in real life. There's things I'd love to tell some people, but it's too difficult to talk about with them personally and maybe we don't have that kind of relationship, but I'd still love to tell them. So I'll tell them here. And it's okay if they don't see it. At least I told them, albeit indirectly.
The paradox of self-expression for me is about the innate desire to express oneself. And how it's impossible to express yourself by yourself, which is what makes self-expression self-expression. And what I'm doing here is mildly cheating, since I have an audience to express too. But I still consider it a mode of self-expression, and I'm going to express the hell out of myself here. Please don't judge me