the world is so beautiful and i am so small

the story of an internal battle

Ever since I read Hamlet in high school, I’ve repeatedly returned to a soliloquy by the title character. After watching an impressive acting performance, Hamlet is overwhelmed by how much emotion this actor can show for a fictitious relation:

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann’d,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit?

In awe of the player, he begins to call himself names, questioning how someone could even evoke their own emotions in such a way. In the rest of the soliloquy, he continues down this path, questioning his ability to take action while hurling creative insults at himself ("I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall” is my favorite).

I’ve always held a tenderness towards Hamlet because of his self-flagellating and angsty nature, which was infinitely relatable to my teenage self. It takes a certain type of person to find faults in themselves when praising another. Can you even imagine a man being so affected by a piece of art that he begins to question himself entirely?

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I went to a poetry reading recently, one where wonderful poets shared beautiful flowing words and told touching stories about intergenerational trauma and addiction, making powerful statements about the world. They were incredible, and as I sat in the audience, I felt like there was an infinite distance between me and my stage. 

Like Hamlet, my awe at the skill of these artists led to self-criticism. While these excellent poets performed their life’s work, I fell into my own egoism, disgusted by the difference between me and those on the stage. These were artists and I am simply a man. They were able to grapple with problems much larger than themselves, trace the sharp edges of prickly topics, and create art from what they were left with.

Despite the dozens of poems in my notebook, despite the couple that had been published, despite my love for the medium of poetry, my confidence in my poetry dissolved all at once.

What was the point of my own writing, so small and zoomed into my life? Did anyone need to hear about the day-to-day of a twenty-something in San Francisco? Did anyone need more words about love and the moon and love of the moon? I was embarrassed of myself, of the smallness of my artistic purview, of my ambition to publish a book or to read my poems on a stage someday.

Like the actor in Hamlet, all these poets did was excel at their art. And like the angsty main character, I found their talent to be fertile soil for my insecurities to sprout. I could no longer see any meaning in anything I wrote. What was the point of me talking about my feelings like this, even if I added all the flourishes to it? It all seemed so insignificant to the world around me, like ants to an elephant.

So last week, I did not write, not even a little note. I simply let the day pass to experience what a life of mine would look like without writing. I questioned whether I would write again and questioned where my time and energy would go instead. Without all of my time navel-gazing, I focused on exercising — pushing myself during strength training workouts and starting a daily running habit. I could use up my excess energy and boost my emotions easily in this way.

I really enjoyed my workouts and my runs. One morning, as I walked back from my run, rain started pouring from the over-filled clouds. It was rare to be caught in the rain in San Francisco, and even rarer for me to be prepared to run a mile home from the middle of the park. As I ran as fast as I could, water dripping from the brim of my hat, I smiled at another runner, one who had checked the weather and had a rain jacket on. He smiled back, reveling in the childlike absurdity of running through the rain. When I finally reached home and dried off, I felt amazing. I had pushed my body further than I normally could and I had felt the rain on my skin and stood in the bliss of a runner’s high.

In the aftermath, I went to share my run on Strava and simply stared at the activity on my phone. I couldn’t really share the experience of these runs, only a record of something that had occurred. There were numbers here and a map and a couple of pictures, but nothing was really shared here. A run or a workout was an experience, one that improved my mood and body, one that felt meaningful because of the rarity of the rain, because of the novelty of the experience.

It felt meaningful, but only to me — an experience that only I could hold. No matter what, I could not make this run mean anything close to anyone else as it did to me, and the limits of focusing on exercise became clear to me. Exercise helped me be a better me, but it did not let me extend beyond myself. Only art could do that.

In my short-term abandonment of writing, I had let myself grow smaller. Even if my writing was small, even if the point did not address larger problems, it still let me be more than I was before to share my experiences in to the best of my ability. It let me reach beyond the limits of my body, to try and touch the lives of others, however little, however few.

And as I continued to ponder, I talked to my number one reader (my mother) about the feelings of meaninglessness in my work. Since I started the newsletter six years ago, she had read every single one and has replied or texted me about every single one. She told me that she looks forward to every Thursday and last Thursday her day was worse without a Splash for her to read. She told me that even if the words don’t have a point, the fact that I write them, the fact that I pursue writing out of my own love for it makes her proud. 

I was reminded that she was one of the main reasons I still wrote — that among all the people who received my newsletter, every single one was for her. And with newly wet eyes, I realized how my insecurities were letting me shrink myself. How small could these words truly be when I had my mother’s love for my work? What is big and small when you can bring joy to the person you love most in the world? How many things can be more meaningful than that?

It may take a while for me to find confidence in my poetry again, but my prose will continue. I won’t change the world in any memorable way and I won’t leave a lasting mark on the world, but I won’t let myself shrink into myself either. Only so many people will see my words, only so many people will appreciate it, only so much can happen from the words spilling out of me. I am small in an enormous world, but what I have and what I can touch is plenty.

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We must do what we can to push back against the genocide in Gaza. Consider calling your US representatives to support de-escalation and a ceasefire or donating to Palestine Children’s Relief Fund for humanitarian aid.

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💧 Drops of the Week 💧

• PLAYLIST - october 23 - an eclectic mix as usual

• POEM - “Grief—” by Victoria Chang - The grief remains but is changed by /

  what it is covered with. A picture of / oblivion is not the same as oblivion.

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