Obligations

I got an email this week… from the archivist at a spanking story website… They want to post my old F/M writing that I’ve taken off the web. They asked three years ago and I turned them down. I hadn’t heard from them again. This person was polite. It has been three years, you can hardly call him pushy. But it struck me strange…that people are still asking… the time they first asked I hadn’t updated that website in years… Now they’ve waited three years, the website is gone, and still people remember…still they ask.

I don’t think my writing is that good. I’m not sure what makes it so unique that people are still asking… years later… literally it’s been 18 years since I first wrote some of those stories… and people are still asking. It feels strange. I can’t identify the emotions. I’m not even sure if they’re positive or negative. They are just… strange.

Three years ago, on this website, there was a forum discussion in which my name was raised… at least the name I used when I wrote those stories… and when informed that I had declined to have my stories archived someone said something along the lines of, Why would anybody decline? Unless you’re going to publish them, why would you keep your stories to yourself? Why wouldn’t you share them?

And that struck me as incredible strange as well. My answer at the time, though I wasn’t a member of the forum so didn’t give an answer, was, “They’re MY stories, why wouldn’t I keep them for myself to do with as and how I please? What do I owe you or anyone else?”

Is art an obligation to society? Are we obligated to society? I was watching some drama last night that I’ve never followed so I had no idea who the people were, but one of them is president of the U.S. and he has a team of people trying to keep him president in spite of scandals, in spite of him, himself, wishing not to be president anymore. One of the advisers says of him something like, He is too good a leader, he was born to lead, he needs to lead. Ordinary lives are for other people, those with gifts must sacrifice ordinary lives to give their gifts to the world.

But should they really? How much suffering is enough? Who decides whose lives belong to themselves and whose belong to the world? Who decides?

Occasionally I talk about giving up my current career path and going back to programming… It would be so much simpler, easier, soothing, logical, and less weight of responsibility on my shoulders. And someone invariably says to me, “You can’t, you have a gift, the world needs you to be who you are.”

But is that what it is? Is my life forfeit to the needs of the world?

It isn’t that simple, of course. I wouldn’t truly be happy programming. Not forever. And I will be fulfilled in my current path, even if I am equally burdened.

But isn’t that my decision? And if I choose to deny the world and myself, isn’t that also mine to decide?

And if I choose to burn all my stories, isn’t that mine as well?

Do artists owe the world their art?

When a friend of mine started publishing her writing, people gave her shit for selling her work instead of offering it for free.

Really?

Because she owes it to the world?

Is that how it all goes?

I haven’t answered the archivist yet.

I think I’m going to turn him down.

If I do repost those writings I want them to remain in my own hands.

I’m sure there will be forum comments.

Selfish of me.