An Audience of Doppelgängers

If while walking along I happened to notice a somewhat ungainly 3-legged wooden display stand surmounted by a photo of an ominous 3-wheeled motorized vehicle, I would slow down to take a closer look. Cursorily examining the printed matter on display I would probably think it seemed interesting enough to take a copy. I would probably read the whole thing. I would probably think that the writer’s psychological practice sounded interesting. I would probably check out the blog. I would probably become at least an occasional reader of the blog in the future.

Why do I write blog posts? Partly because the topics interest me, partly because writing helps me clarify my thoughts, partly because I like crafting the prose. So why do I put it out there for other people to read? Partly because I think others will share my interest in the topic, partly because I think others might derive value or pleasure from what I’ve had to say, partly because I would enjoy engaging in online discussions about the topic with others.

So do I write these posts for myself, or for the others? I’d say that I write for the readers. If I wrote strictly for myself the prose would be less precise, the material less well organized — which is how I write in my personal notebooks. Does that mean I write for a particular audience — for the regular readers and commenters, for the somewhat wider audience who visit occasionally but who rarely if ever comment, or for all those who have never read my blog? When I first started the blog, before I had any readers, I consciously set out to woo an audience. I had just finished writing a nonfiction book, and I wrote blog posts that I hoped would attract people who might be interested in reading my book. But that phase of Ktismatics ended at least six months ago.

Now when I write something I presume that everyone is potentially interested in it. But I don’t consciously adapt what I have to say either to attract or to offend any particular sort of reader. I’ve also come to realize that, for whatever reason, not everyone cares about what I write or likes the way I write about it.

I can picture myself wandering haphazardly through the blogosphere and happening to come upon Ktismatics. I imagine that I don’t remember having written the blog, or that it was written by my exact double. Would I like reading Ktistmatics? I believe that I would. Now I imagine a complementary scenario: I write Ktismatics and launch it into a world populated by uncounted replicates of me. I suspect this is the audience I’m writing for: a version of myself who is entirely unknown to me.

A few posts ago I quoted the poet Wallace Stevens as saying that he wrote for the elite. I suppose I do too: an elite whose archetypal figure is myself. While I imagine a potential audience that includes everyone in the world, I’m actually writing for no one – a fantasized projection of myself that doesn’t exist. It’s a kind of schizoid move of self-alienation, separating myself-as-writer from myself-as-reader.

For whom do you write?