I met an obnoxious twat a long time ago who had the audacity to ask me who my reader was, and I could not tell him about you, and I did not have that answer on my sleeve. But that is what an artist is; we do not know answers beyond what we do, and up until then, I had never once thought to ask: who is my reader?
People who make little themselves and do not know what it is to create things tend to drag you down into their terrible existence. They have the insolence to tell you with their jargon and other horrible atrocities that your world is one of make-believe, of fantasy, and that they talk of the real world. What they fail to realise is that all of it is make-believe. When you trim the hubris, we are still telling stories, some of which are widely agreed upon; that is where all the difference is made. But regardless of my encounter with an ape who believed in the real world, I have thought about it after all. That is the problem with people and their queries and concerns—which is a nicer way to say their prodding and prying, their unsolicited questions and advice—the idea is always left behind, lingering.
Who is my reader?
I have thought about it for years, and I have thought about it relentlessly. It has been a delusional obsession where if I tell someone about it, it will not be in my favour, and if I keep it to myself, I will go mad. Today, however, I seem to have cracked it; I have had a breakthrough.
Who is my reader? You ask. Well, my reader is the one who sits with me, the one who sits across from me, who knows to pause. My reader is not one who needs instruction, nor do they need my help. They are too busy with the roles and rules of the world and the stories we tell ourselves to get by during the day. My reader is the person who gets by. That is who I write for and who I talk to. I speak to the person who is just that, a person. Neither on a mission nor lost in nothingness, my reader is the one who spends their day quietly, and at the end of it, they sit facing this gargantuan responsibility of being alive, not in search for answers, but only to have a minute of respite.
I write for the person who sits quietly. There is no greater privilege.