What even is success?

Success is such a weird word. What does it even mean? It is one of those words that gives me a similar itch "white people stuff" gives me, but different. Maybe it's the "neoliberal bullshit" itch, idk.

"I am a successful woman"

I tried to say this out loud and i might as well say "my ulster's vacation is green". Utter nonsense.

I mean I know what people "mean" when they talk about success. They talk about fulfilling some goal. For some success is to money, for others it's social capital or power. But that answer just opens up the question "what is a goal?" Do People really have goals? Or are goals just internalized expectations?

And what is a goal or success here, in this little corner created by some obscure protocol and obscure software used by obscure writers writing obscure poetry?

Being an artist for a big part of my life now, I only began to write last year. First I only wrote to myself. An ongoing dialog with me and my typewriter. At some point I began to publish things on my website but I quickly noticed that puts an expectation on me. I have to force myself not to rewrite something that's too whacky and abrasive for what I'd expect to see on a website. I don't care a lot if anyone reads my poetry if it only exists on paper in a folder on my shelf. But once it's online, a part of me wants to know if people read it, if they like it, wants them to like it. And that's not who I wanna be. - I don't wanna want to be successful.

Of cause there's writing I do that is part of what they call "discourse" and that's an entirely different beast. It gets its value from people replying to it, from exchanging thoughts and ideas. But that's not the writing I mean.

Lately I struggle with writing poetry, and that's fine. I have other things on my mind right now, recovering from a really bad last year, trying to regain focus. But I feel the urge to write. Which leads me into the third kind of writing. Writing out my thoughts and feelings without an artistic impulse behind. Without layers of unwordable meaning condensed in in the arrangement of just a few letters.

I wanna hear your thoughts about writing. About meaning. And about the why. I started this transmission by thinking about the concept of success and ended up here. In a more intimate place. And that's why I like the 3rd kind of writing. It is taking a walk through the chaos that is in my head. You think you walk towards some goal but the goal is an illusion, a fata morgana. You continue to wander and pass thoughts you thought you had forgotton.