Note – I wrote this originally at another site but am posting it in as many places as possible as a reminder to myself of the promises I have made, the person I am and hope I will be…even after I am certifiably “grown up”
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I dont believe we write for ourselves. I dont believe artists are egocentric, oblivious, self-serving jerks. I dont believe writers are. I believe we create because we have faith in the world. Faith in the people that will read, understand and hopefully act on or for what we have written. I believe I have lost that faith, at least for a bit…or I have no purpose for which people must act. There is so much to grieve for in this world. How is it that I can justify writing, painting, drawing…for me? How is it that anyone can justify a life they have lived solely for themselves? Everyone wants to leave a mark somewhere, in any way possible – something to say they existed once..or someone. People get married, have kids, grand-kids, pets, landmarks, carvings in trees, cave paintings…something that will one day say it has witnessed the life of so and so… why is it that we dont utilize this drive? Why is it? When all we want is to be witnessed, why fall into the tired ways…that dont suit half of us and make the other half unhappy? By whos order?
Mama says I’ll grow out of my naivety. I’ll settle down some day, get a husband and procreate. Thats not how I want my life to be witnessed. It isnt the way I want to leave a mark. Some day when I will have forgotten this, and will be sitting in my four doored sedan with two baby car seats in the back…I will realise that I have wasted my life getting the perfect grades, hairstyle, body…I will have wasted myself trying to be the best in a society that thrives on charades and half-cocked acts…and I myself have taken part, shirked blame by saying (like the Hitler’s soldiers did) that everyones doing it.
I hope it never comes to that. I hope I never forget.
