I’m currently reading Caitlin Moran’s “How to be a Woman” – a title I picked out of Emma Watson’s global book club “Our Shared Shelf” and Leandre Medine’s (who is one of my favourite OG fashion bloggers since the early 2000s) “Man Repeller”; something I’ve been meaning to read but managed to put off for years on end.
Its been some time since I’ve read anything that isn’t fictional and/or related to and benefitting my course. And I can’t actually remember the last time I read something that falls under the “Biography” genre, and its because I’ve written them off since the only ones I ever bought and read/tried reading in the past are that of politicians, and important people in history and such. I couldn’t relate to those people, and I don’t know much about them to begin with to care enough – so its always been a case of abandonment midway through, or just absolutely slouching and trodding to the very last page.
I wish I could WOW you with facts about Joseph Stalin after having read his biography but I’m embarrassed to admit that I remember zilch.
But its an entirely different experience with Caitlin and Leandre; while I’ve never heard of Caitlin Moran before her book – both of them write in a manner in which I imagine they would speak to a group of close friends. I’m not yet done with either book, but it only took the first few pages of both for me to be hooked.
I have both to thank in this post. I haven’t been writing on here much, and when I do they end up in my drafts until I inevitably delete them for good. Frankly, the number one reason why I’ve not been writing is because I felt that neither my stories nor my writing is not good enough (note: “worthy”) for me to put on here.
Also I would like to casually throw society’s over-obsession with “curated” content under the bus, because while its not all bad, it has generated a culture that is obsessed with “aesthetics” (hyphenated because I mean this in the larger sense of the word, in that everything needs to be perfect) and any less than that, you’re not worthy. Of an audience, of a following, etc. Its made those who are more unconventional, and those who don’t subscribe to the genre of “aesthetics” that have been made for us to choose from less likely to come out of their often more colourful shell. I consider myself one such hermit crab. Not unique (I can’t like this word), but definitely a little out of place.
Reading through both Caitlin and Leandre’s books made me realise that not all stories will be deemed worthy enough to be penned down… until you do. Caitlin’s struggle to find a name for her vagina and Leandre’s overt description of the outfit she wore to lose her virginity may seem unnecessary, but only if they didn’t contribute to the whole story of how and why they came to be who they are. But they do.
If you follow me on Instagram, which unfortunately you can’t if you’re not a friend (aha) then you would be no stranger to my little essays masked as “captions” and Instagram stories on random bits and bobs of my life. I do, in fact, love to share instances of my life with others… but I’ve grown comfortable to only share in 150 characters or less or have it disappear from the surface of the Earth within 24 hours.
I’m putting an end to that now.
From here on out, I’m writing about whatever it is that I feel like writing about. I’m throwing caution… to the WIND! And if I ever become a person someone cares about enough to look up (outside the format of my professional Curriculum Vitae) then I want this blog to bear the contents of what they are looking for; pure, unadulterated me; boring – potentially, inconsequential in the larger sense of any picture – most definitely, but at least its a picture I’ll have painted of myself, without the reins of self-consciousness holding me back.
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