Winston, Jr. putting his lips to the world

  May 10, 2008 – Blog is an ugly and ungainly term for so interesting a vehicle of individual expression, but the Internet is often like that, new kinds of names for new kinds of things.
  I’ve been writing on the Internet almost since its creation, and I resisted having a site or blog until two years ago. Since them, I’ve been surprised at how central this site has become to my work life, and to my own creativity. The blog drives much of my writing, my photography, and even a considerable slice of search for spirituality. It give structure to my writing, helps me focus on and be accountable for my own search for a better and more meaningful life.
  I bet it sells some books, too.
  In recent months, I’ve become fixated on a personal mission, a calling if you will, even a Ministry about encouraging creative and interesting people seeking to find their voices, who they are and what they want to say to the world. They often love, as I do, Mary Oliver’s wonderful poem, “Mornings at Blackwater Creek,” which closes by saying “So put your lips to the world. And just live.”
   This issue is important to me for several reasons. Like many of those people writing to me, I often wished for encouragement, struggled to find my own voice, and free the inner spirits battling to get out. On the Internet, many of us fear criticism, exposure, hostility, invasions.
  And if I was hesitant, after having written 15 books and been a media critic and reporter, I can only imagine how difficult a process this is for many of you. I am surprised by how many people write me extraordinary messages, but believe they have nothing to say.
  There is criticism on the Internet, and it has been good for me. There are some disturbed people out there, and they may find you and send you strange messages. I have a number of online stalkers, and even some real live ones who pop up all the time.
  On the whole, the Internet is a safe place, and you can easily – through filters and screens – control who gets to you, and who doesn’t. I have never needed to do that, and I get an awful lot of e-mail. I can tell you that I live and work and write and photograph on a cloud of electronic love, support and encouragement. Just this morning, I was having a wicked diabetic episode and didn’t know it until I read some e-mail from people who actually sensed it in my words and writing. I’ll be mulling that for a bit.
   I have wanted to take pictures for most of my life, and did so fearfully and warily, and one reason I continued to work and grow at photography was the daily stream of messages telling me I could do it, should do it, and thanking me for it. These messages made the difference. Don’t fear the world. Of course there are dangerous and disturbing things in it, but there is also support and community and encouragement. People want to hear what you have to say, and what you have to say is important, your signal to the world.
 Finding your voice, and letting it live is, to me, central to being fulfilled, and living a meaningful life. It is a fundamental need for many of us, and many of us have felt fear and concern about exposing our words, ideas and personas.
  One deeply spiritual woman sent me a powerful e-mail about my photography, and made me see that God might be revealing himself to me through some of it, and she wrote me a series of beautiful messages, then told me she has wanted to start a blog, but has nothing to say and fears the hostility that might be out there.
  Lin wrote me that is evaluating who she is and what she wants to say to the world and it took her weeks to get up the nerve and go to Google blogspot. It was frightening, she said, to put herself out there, “out on that rickety limb of judgment and possible failure. What do I call the silly thing? What do I put on there? What pictures represent me, Hell, what background represents me?”
  Lin did it, and it is a great blog, and she has lots to say.
  Google makes it easy to set up filters, which made Lin feel safer. I don’t use any filters, and I feel plenty safe and I have been writing online for years and I get a lot of strange and wonderful e-mail.
 And I want to say to you something I feel passionately about. I was not encouraged to be a writer, never told I had something to say, never believed I could write a book or take a good photo or live the life I wanted to live, and this fear and pain cost me and others dearly, and wasted many years of my life.
  Blogs are a curious spinoff of the technological revolution, one that has given voice to many people who didn’t feel they had one, or that they had something to say to the world. Finding your voice and expressing your thoughts is perhaps more possible than in any time in my lifetime.
 Lin is a hero. So is Kathy and Jen and Susan and Steve and the many others who have been e-mailing me about wanting to start their own blogs, to find their voices, free their inner spirits, send their stories and signals to the world.
  So, if you are so moved, put your lips to the world. And blog.