A writer's life is a curious thing. Like any artist, a writer seeks truth and through fact or fiction, seeks to immortalize those truths into something tangible and leaves that work behind as a living, breathing embodiment of self.
A writer wrestles with himself within the lines of work, struggling to both embrace and detach himself from life in order to examine existence and form new appreciation of it. In the process, the lines of reality blur as the realms of the real, the possible and the ridiculous plot themselves out before us.
Curious minds are, by nature, creative and reality may skew accordingly, if not for balance. One needs a touchstone, an anchor, in order to land; come back down to earth after a flight of fancy.
I could very well become a hermit and resign myself to a life of literary solitude.
Like Dickinson, I could lock myself in an attic and pine away in pages. Or create a Walden for myself, a world away from the fray of the everyday. However, I refuse to become five flavors of mental anguish and one can only live within oneself for so long without losing touch with their purpose. In order to examine humanity and existence, we must walk among it. We must live ordinary lives before we can become extraordinary.
So how do we balance our lives in a way that allows us to make sense of the lives we are living and the lives we create? How do we move through the lives we plot out before us? I'm trying to make sense of that right now.
I feel like a character in a novel, facing an array of trials to test my endurance and constitution. Sometimes I feel like it is my novel and sometimes I feel like I'm not always the author. In all actuality, it is the story of us all.
Every great story begins with a journey, an adventure and characters that do not, at first, realize their full potential. In our own stories, we have our introductions to the world, our struggles, resolutions, and the conclusions we draw from these lessons. We choose to be either dynamic or stagnant. We choose to be either the hero or live quiet lives, but even if we are not the main character, we contribute to the story in the book of life.
We are all searching for meaning, even if our research methods vary. The things that we find meaningful are different and there are many red herrings; distractions that take us off our path.
So if you find yourself caught in a fairytale, or any story, write it down. Write it down so that other characters can learn from your story. Perhaps it's not Canterbury Tales or the brothers Grimm, but if you have a thought in your head, write it. Leave more than your carbon footprint behind you on this little blue planet.
The life that you live is some flavor of human struggle that is ancient as the stars. You, my love, are a unique component of this universe and part of how we make sense of ourselves. So write it! Or use what talent you have to leave your experience behind. Write it, sculpt it, film it, but tell your story, because it is the story of us all.
Perhaps people may not listen. Sometimes they don't hear us, but if we can find a way to tuck our message in pages, hide it within reels, or in lyrics, we can clue them in on what we know. Maybe we can help them seek beauty and truth, when all they find is confusion. Perhaps it is a hard task, but it is a labor of love for fellow man.
An artist's mission must be clearly stated, if ever so subtly, if that makes sense. We cannot scream it, because that is too obtrusive. We must slip it in through the back door, tiptoe through the hallways, find our audience, and whisper to them and sing lullabyes. Whisper words of comfort and truth because everyone feels alone and struggles to come to terms with their own story. If they hear our stories, which resound with universal commonality, they can cradle their own pain and sing them softly to sleep, like little children.
