The siren song of recognition is very powerful, but slowly but surely, as you say, I find myself coming to recognize that I prefer my life to any other. Even with all that it sometimes seems to lack.

But I do the same with pen and paper (or the 21st century technological equivalents). It does remind me that a writer I’ve long since lost contact with once told me there was something wrong with a person who does something and then must run home to immediately write about what they’ve done. Or maybe he was paraphrasing from someone famous? But his point was: that “something wrong” is to be admired.

Yes it is something to be admired. No, there’s nothing wrong with it or us. Think cave paintings. It is how we make sense of and comminicate who we are – to ourselves and to each other.

Writers write because we see things that are worth sharing and no one sees the same thing in the same way.

Artists art . . . for the same reason. Just fill in the blank. Medium makes no difference.

Everybody has at least one novel (or movie or (just fill in more art forms, I think you get my point)) in them because everyone’s life is a volume of . . . same kaleidescope of artforms.

The world we live in today with all its devices and means to document and share and be heard makes reading (read receiving) more worthwhile, writing (read creating and expressing and comminicating) more priceless and going the long haul (read living) much more manageable and enjoyable.

If, when my in-laws were videotaping and viewing, I knew then what I know now, I would have run with them to see it all. I’m sure I would have seen something new and learned.

Thank you

I write because I need to clear my head and heart of soon to be forgotten oral histories and fictional characters that descend upon me in the shower, while driving, or standing in line at the grocery store — all instances when I don’t have pen and paper.

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” – Thomas Mann