Why I Wrote
The Vault
A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe. “The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”
- Stephen Crane, War is Kind
As humorous as this dialogue is, Albert Camus’s honest observation rings truer to me. The universe guards her secrets fiercely and I suspect any such tête-à-tête would be a monologue. Amid the universe’s absurd silence, I sensed a familiar heaviness deep within.
“You’d make a great cult leader.”
Ryan, Dear Friend, After Hearing My Reason for Writing
Human languages are poignant yet so coarse. Misunderstanding is almost guaranteed the moment words escape my lips or my fingertips. Purpose is a great example; for many, the word invokes the idea of a supernatural being with transcendent perspectives. Yet, etymologically, the word comes from Latin roots meaning “forth” (pro) and “to place” (ponere).
The original idea is to put something forward, or to place a target in front of oneself.
“People don’t have ideas, ideas have people.”
carl jung
Perhaps my affinity (and disdain, for that matter) for certain ideas is a mere manifestation of inherited and forged neural patterns. Or perhaps the innate preference had been bestowed upon me. Who knows? But instead of searching for the source of this drive, I realized there was a better way to use my time and energy – setting a target at which to aim.
“Too many writers write for the wrong reasons. They want to get famous or they want to get rich or they want to get laid by the girls with bluebells in their hair. When everything works best it’s not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It’s when you’re mad with it, it’s when it’s stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It’s when there’s no hope but that.”
Charles Bukowski
Bukowski was right. I have no choice but to write. Not because it is ordained by some external authority, or because I consider myself an agent of the supernatural or expect great wealth from it. No, the truth is simpler and humbler than that. I choose to write because writing is easier than not writing. The heaviness vanishes when I do.
And that is why I write.