Nobody loves a writer

Nobody wants to be a writer. It's much better to let those magical thoughts, images, and ideas remain like magic. So much better to let things remain unsaid. Who wants to remove the veil that shrouds certainty? To know is to be burdened with awareness. It's responsible, sensible, and sound. It all seems so dreadfully dull on the page, drenched in black and white. Why would anyone wish to take that vibrant idea, so colorful and free, and imprison it into words, open to analysis, to be butchered, dissected, torn apart, and rearranged, until little to none of the original form remains? 

Nobody wants to work on a single thing for years at a time. Looking at the same thing repeatedly in a vacuum, day after day, always thinking about it yourself, always working on it in your head. Nobody wants to be alone, working on a series of words to put their name on, something worth reading for other people, pouring all of their being and life energy into it, only for it to be released into the wild, open to the mockery and ridicule of every tom, dick, and harry. 

I am no different than anyone else. To write is to take a problem, like a puzzle with no box, and sit with it until you figure it out. Once you solve it, you can share the solution. Some problems are made just to sell a solution, while most solutions don't work universally. All this is to say that the whole thing is a giant waste of time for the most part. I don't want to come up with solutions, butcher my inspiration, or be alone wither. And writing truly does require immense solitude. I don't want to rack up my brain, exert myself, and bang my head against a wall just to be different or original to improve my self-esteem. In fact, the whole endeavor makes me feel inadequate at times to do anything ever again, or to look anyone in the eye. 

So I write about writing in a blog that I don't share and fill up little notepads bursting with countless incoherent, half-ideas. I tell people I write only when I have to and never share any of the measly articles I have managed to muster together. Above anything else, I never ever work on anything that I actually care about and let my ideas rust on the shelves of the flawless mental display within my subconscious mind where they shall remain until I am absolutely certain that its safe to bring them out into a hostile world that ruthlessly rips every creative endeavor apart. Of course, I never talk about my favorite ideas either, because that would mean putting them into words, words that can limit, fail to live up to, and even completely transform the original image that was meant to be conveyed.

I would much rather have a 9-hour job that I don't care about, where they tell me what to do and pay me enough to survive where I don't really have to care that much because whatever I do isn't all me, it's something that was taught to me and I'm doing my best to fulfill with my abilities, and if you don't like it that's fine, I can walk out because I never cared in the first place. You can find a new replacement and I can find something else I don't care about. Then why, oh why, in heaven's name, did I quit my job to write my things? Why am I forcing myself to suffer through this dreadful process? Every day I try and fail, and the failure hurts because I care so deeply. "Writing this is all I've ever wanted to do. This is the best I could come u with? What an absolutely, miserably, useless existence." 

I doubt I could earn much considering my speed and I definitely find no inherent pleasure in the act. I am certainly mediocre at it too, the field of literature won't bat an eye at my absence. I've reached a point where I am beginning to hate the act. I am starting to get fed up with reading too. I knew all this would come yet I tried it anyway. I had wanted to see better stories above anything else. I thought if I engaged with the process, I'd have better chances. I thought it would be fun, enjoyable, and worthwhile. I thought I'll earn a lot one day because I care about it, and that I'll learn a lot about myself on the way. 

It's clear to me now that consistency and joy in working demand a kind of dispassionate action where you are detached from the outcome of the work. In other words, it's better to not care so much and be consistent above anything else. What I've learned about myself is that I am not special. My ideas aren't better, and my words aren't made of gold. The process is the process and every part is equally important only when it is seen all the way to the end, and in an incomplete process, everything is pretty much worthless. 

Ultimately I choose to write because I feel I have to. I feel like I need to figure out what I'm all about and writing is the only way for me to do that. I want nothing more than to bury my head in the sand and sit this whole thing out nowadays. I find it dreadful and anxiety-inducing to have to always be producing words that are good, worth reading, and consistently churned out in a useful and consumable manner. I find it horribly gut-wrenching to smear my ideas across the paper, butcher them into their working parts, and then try to fashion something appealing from the mess for else to get value out of. 

While I struggle to tame the wild dragon that is the conscious mind, drown in a haze of self-pity and procrastination, and watch my body go completely to shit, I'd hate to let myself down so I'll see it through.