Some people don’t like to look at themselves in a mirror, some people love to do it. Personally, I don’t feel very comfortable to see mirrors at midnight, but you need it sometimes to check whether your hair is twisting in a funny way, or whether you have any unexpected hair coming from your nose or ears.
When I stand in front of it, the mirror always ask me: “Who are you?” Or am I asking the person in the mirror: “Who am I?”
Everyone has an ideal self and a real self, and we want to look nicer than we do. It is not an exception when I am writing.
When I was 14 years old, my Japanese teacher liked one of my compositions and said that he wanted to nominate it to the region-wide writing competition. He asked me to edit and rewrite it because it was just like a rough draft. I didn’t think I was very ambitious or competitive at that time, but anyway I edited and rewrote it, to make it more sophisticated, and then, I passed it to him. He read it and said: “Well, you know, the previous one was better than this, I should say.”
It was the first honest critique of my writing in my life. His words slightly hurt me, and I was disappointed. But some part of myself agreed with him, in a way. I knew I had messed it up. I tried to write something more than who I was. I tried to pretend to be a better person than I actually was. I put too many words which I thought nice and beautiful, but they were not really necessary. I made a mess of it because I wanted it to look too tidy and neat.
I started voice blogging at the end of 2018. When I recorded my first episode, I was a little shocked because of my bad voice. It may be similar to the moment when you first saw yourself in the mirror in your life, I don’t remember, though. Before that, I had expected that I had a beautiful voice as most voice-bloggers have. It was a shocking moment when my ideal voice met my real voice.
After I recorded my first episode, I wondered whether I should post it even I didn’t like my voice. And I thought people around me have been listening to my voice as long as they have known me. So, why should I hesitate? I can change the pitch of my voice, the way I talk, but I can’t change my voice. I finally published it.
I cannot be someone more than me or less than me, when I am writing or voice blogging. My audience is not interested in me who pretend to be more than who I am.
Comments