Blog-phobia

I am being encouraged by a friend to open a blog, and I find that I am resistant to it.

Why?

When I was young, in my 20s and 30s, I used to write much, type it on paper, have it copied, and send it to friends, by post. That was a lot more tedious and time-consuming than it is today. Now, all you have to do is e-mail it to as many people as you like, in a few seconds, or blog it for the world to read – and I don't want to do it!

Some of it has to do with my being in Iran for fifteen years, as a writer, editor, and translator. I used to write and edit for the Tehran Times and Iran News, and at first it was exciting, but then I began to wonder…

Who reads my writings? Do they even know English well enough to read it? I am writing for a fundamentalist newspaper in Iran, where the language is Persian, but I am writing in English, and I am a liberal. Why am I here? What am I doing?

Gradually, through some reactions to my writings I discovered that, for example, a lady my age, around fifty at the time, who was educated in the West, had lived in Paris, London, and New York… has read my writing, and she fiercely criticizes IT and Me. She once told me, "You sure know how to write, but you have nothing to write ABOUT!"

She said that on the telephone at midnight!

But she herself was an editor at a magazine, and I later found out that she had published my writing (the same piece which caused her to say I have nothing to write about), in her own magazine, without asking my permission, without telling me, without giving me any money for it.

So what happened? If I am such a bad writer, why did she publish my writing?

Years later, after she got cancer, I realized that she actually loved my writings, but she was probably somewhat jealous that I was writing and, as she said herself, "I liked to be mean!"

Once she got cancer, she stopped being mean.

She said that she had been mean all her life because she hadn't received love from either parent.

Of course I felt sorry for her, and now she apparently had terminal cancer, but why did I have to deal with her problems simply because I had written a piece which had nothing to do with her problems.

Another incident was when I had written a short poem, no more than ten lines long, about men starting wars, and women and children suffering and becoming homeless because of it.

An Iranian man who had read this didn't like the poem.

He had called the newspaper twice before I had arrived, then called again after I arrived.

"What is your education?" he wanted to know.

I told him where I had been educated and what my degree was.

"Do you have a license to write?"

Since you need a license to do anything in Iran, this man thought I needed a license to write.

I told him that anyone can write anything he wants; he doesn't need a license. And if the newspaper editors have decided to publish a poem, they must have thought there is some good in it.

When the volume in my voice rose to a dangerous level, the editor-in-chief took the receiver from me.

He said, "A work of art is arbitrary; it can say anything. You don't necessarily have to agree with it... If you have something to say, write your own piece and send it to the newspaper."

I had used the word "man" to mean "human being," but this man thought that I meant "man," the male human being. He did not know English well enough to know that "man" can also mean the human being.

I asked myself, why am I writing for people who do not know English well enough? Why am I writing for someone who is offended when I say wars are started by men? Why are nerds reading my writings?

I need to control who reads me, I thought.

I have spent a lifetime fighting with my father; I just don't have the time or energy to fight with people I don't know… over their jealousies and complexes.

So that's one reason I don't want to blog.

I have also spent a lifetime learning how to write. But in blogs people do not respect (or know) the rules of writing. They just TALK.

I should look at a blog as a way of TALKING, but I can't help getting into a critical mode and looking at it as a piece of WRITING.

From another blog:

"It also really, insanely irks me when those who opposed the war state their reasons and give a big loud I told you so … By only referring to what America has lost during these 5 long years. More than ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND Iraqis have been fucking KILLED. Not “injured”, not “wounded” … FUCKING KILLED!!!!!!!!!! This is a bloody massacre and you tell me about what it’s done to your economy? At least throw them a nod or a gesture you fucking, elitist bastard!"

I am quoting from the blog of a very reasonable and intelligent young Iranian woman in America, http://www.sidewalklyrics.com/ But she is using the word FUCKING too much; it is filled with emotion. Too many profanities are shouted in blogs, but I must admit that her words are effective!

In the same blog, in another post, she begins talking about fathers:

"When Obama said: “Too many fathers are M.I.A, too many fathers are AWOL, missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.”

"I could only hope that one day a well known Iranian would do us a favor and say the same about Iranian fathers – of a different variety."

But I cannot understand how, in a few lines, she went from fathers to:

"Mohammad Khatami, when running in 1997, for the first time in the history of any Iranian leader, deeply criticized the root of female inactivity (i.e., exercise) in Iran and attributed much of it to government policy.
The female Iranian is not physically active. Even as her financially privileged get more acquainted with Birkin’s and Louboutin’s, physical exercise still has to become a daily norm in most of our lives."

Never mind that I do not know what Birkin's or Louboutin's are, but I thought that we were going to discuss fathers, not lack of physical exercise for women!

So anyone can write a blog; anyone can say anything; and there is no editor to say, what you say is very good, "but it doesn't belong here!" as an editor once told William Faulkner.

Let's respect the art of writing. Let's understand that if you don't use profanities, if you observe form and style, brevity and wit… your message will be more effective.

So you see, I've gotten blog-phobia. Now that I can publish myself, I don't want to. In my youth, I wanted everyone to know how I thought; now I believe my thoughts are private. Just as I don't strip naked in front of anyone, I don't express my thoughts to just anyone. Only when I choose, I want to say what I think to a few people.

Now let me post this writing on a blog and expose myself to everyone!

Persian Speak

Persians do not say what they mean; they mean what they do not say.

Father leaves a message on my answering machine: "I won't bother you anymore."

This means: I've been out of the hospital for three days, and you haven't come to visit me even once at home. I am upset with you. I feel lonesome and forsaken. I won't bother you anymore since that seems to be what you want.

* * *

I come home from the hospital; I call my stepmother in the hospital and I say, "I am home. When Father is about to be released from the hospital, call me and I'll be there."

She doesn't call me. Aside from paying the hospital bill, she has to also go to the hospital pharmacy and get medicines for my father; the pharmacist writes instructions for the drugs on a piece of paper. In the hustle and bustle, my stepmother leaves the drugs and the paper in the pharmacy, which then closes.

The reason she didn't call me to help her was this: You are supposed to come to the hospital yourself. I am not supposed to tell you when to come. You are supposed to sit there for five hours, or whatever it takes (as I do), until your father is released. I am going to go through it all by myself to show that you are of no help, and let your father become aware what an irresponsible and unhelpful son he has (and what a responsible and helpful wife he has).

That is why she has a mobile phone: so as not to inform me at the right time to do the right thing.

* * *

My stepmother thinks she can do it better than anyone else. She doesn't need anyone's help. She doesn't ask for help. And when her sister or I do not show up to help her, she says, "See, no one is helping me; I am all alone in this!" And she can feel the satisfaction of being victimized.

* * *



My friend Reza called Helen in order to introduce us to each other and arrange a meeting. He handed his mobile phone to me to talk to her.

"I hope that we will have a good and pure relationship," said Helen.

Then why meet at all? I wondered.

When I told Reza what Helen had said, he said, "This means come and fuck me!"

* * *

One night, Reza, Stefan and his girlfriend, Marjan, were in my apartment. Stefan is a Romanian photographer who was showing us photos he had taken.

"I didn't have time to photograph all of these, so I had Sanaz help me."

"Who is Sanaz?" asked Marjan.

"She is a friend of mine who is also a photographer," said Stefan.

"How nice!" said Marjan.

Later, when Marjan had left, Reza said to Stefan, "'How nice' meant 'How terrible!' "

Interpretation

I created this blog at 2:30 a.m. Tehran time on May 5th, 2007. I am not sure I want a blog, but here it is! Throughout most of my life I have wanted to express myself, but now that blogs have been created I am not sure that I want anyone to read what I write and have to deal with their reactions. I am usually surprised by people's reactions to what I write. There are as many interpretations as there are readers.

Sometimes the writer has no intention of saying something, but the reader reads it into the writing. And sometimes the writer reads or hears a reader's interpretation and says, "Cool! I didn't say that, but that's an interesting interpretation of what I wrote."

What is the relationship between writer and reader?