On Staring Down the Face of Obscurity
I get it, you know.
I get how it feels to want to be somebody.
Not just somebody your mom and dad knows.
Not just somebody who has a few likes on their Facebook page.
Not just somebody who wishes they were somebody.
And honestly, I can’t even say “and now I’m on the other side” because I’m not there yet. I certainly don’t have rock star status nor are tons of people getting in touch with me. I’ve got so success story to sell you.
Heck, at time of writing, I’ve not even made a dollar doing my own work. (negative money, actually)
I am, and likely will be for the rest of my life, anonymous to at least 99.9999% of the world.
All I know is that I’m not quitting.
And it’s not because I think writing will eventually bring me fame and fortune. I’ll be lucky to make back the money I’ve spent so far if you count school, the website, and the pure man hours per dollar it takes me to write each post.
I’m not quitting because I love the way it feels to disappear behind the words. To stop thinking about how I look or how much money I have or how l much I have left to accomplish.
When I’m writing, the world drifts away. I’m writing this in an airport, but in my head I’m tucked away in my writer’s cabin, pounding out words that will change someone’s point of view, obsessed with coming up with an idea that will change a life.
Because doing what you love is never really about the money or the recognition or any superficial thing. It’s about getting swept away in the flow. It’s about finding what makes you come alive.
Flow is all that matters. Sometimes the only reason I write is because I want to go to that place, that place where the world and sound and noise and sight disappear and the words are no longer coming from me, they are coming through me.
Nothing matters except this moment in time. A word is no longer a word; a sentence is no longer a sentence; and a paragraph is no longer a paragraph. They are all combined in the cauldron of the cranium and spill out as ideas, or the combination of ideas.
I write because I need that escape. I write because I need the world to disappear. I write because in my personal bubble, the problems of life all fade away and, in fact, don’t really mean that much anyway.
I write because I need that clarity.
Why do you do what you do?
