Originally shared by Mac Vogt

Loved this bit in J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey:

The letter itself was virtually endless in length, overwritten, teaching, repetitious, opinionated, remonstrative, condescending, embarrassing — and filled, to a surfeit, with affection. In short, it was exactly the kind of letter that a recipient, whether he wants to or not, carries around for some time in his hip pocket. And that professional writers of a type love to reproduce verbatim:

Which then Salinger reproduces, of course. It reminded me of myself, of course. Anyone who follows this profile knows I can produce posts that could be described as overwritten, teaching, repetitious, opinionated etc. Some of it hardly makes any sense rereading! So, yes, of course, the passage is recognizable in a distinct sinking feeling kind of way, and thank you Mr. J D Salinger for giving me some salvation at the end. See, I can recognize how they fail, but I can’t hate my own failed writings, and maybe I’m attracted to them too for the reason the recipient, whether he wants to or not carries around the embarrassing letter for some time in his hip pocket. For that memorable, human, unrestrained love!

Which reminds me, Marcos Henrique Silva?? posted a short poem in the same vein:

Let me choke on chagrin

Lest I’m rendered empty

After fighting failure for so long.

Let me dwell on the ring

While the light ones deride me

For losing the flame,

The countour of my lame body in the dark.

At least my shattered framework is saved

And I’d rather be shrapnel in outer space

Than a stiff warhead in a case.

© Marcos Henrique Silva 2016.

OP here: [https://goo.gl/WI8Rjn]

Put it all out there, risk being the fool! Yes, the recipient might then happily see themselves as better, and who cares? They also might find themselves with your words in their hip pocket.?

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(EDIT: Of course, social media is different than the intimate matter of letter writing. For one, would you keep close flawed writing not so inspired by you? 😉 )