Writing

Pain is an addiction in which we are all inevitably intoxicated by. There is no remedy, no cure. We are lured to pain and we revel in it. There is pain in loving someone, pain in the absence of love, pain in the rejection of love, pain in disappointment; There is pain in self-loathing, in feeling inadequate and insufficient; There is pain the loss of hope, in the loss of faith. And the deepest of pains are those that are not on the skins that enwrap us or the flesh that binds us. The deepest of pain is found within the soul, the very thing whose existence is beyond corporeality, beyond sensuality. And yet we know pain is there for we feel its scourge tear our inner entrails. It rips the soul apart, shatters the heart and murders hope. It is unseen but it is as real as the air we do not see. Pain is as real as the soul is. That is the inescapable condition of humanity.

Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, alludes to how great works of art stem from a Dionysiac frenzy, a frenzy that can find root in pain. Pain produces art, it produces writing. Without pain, there would be no art, no inscription, no word, for there would be no need to make sense of the indescribable, the ever visually-absent presence that haunts one's past, present, and future.

“Writing eases my suffering... writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.” ~ Gao Xingjian

Why do I write? It is not for my reader, not for a vain quest in immortality for even words fade. I write to make sense of my suffering so I can maintain a sanity in a day that is ruled by social norms and conformity - oh how we all fear to be different; and the things we would give up just to be like 'everyone else'. I write to reaffirm my own existence because I can no longer see myself through someone else, a significant other that is lost, that never was, that never will be. I write to make certain that I am alive and that I'm not living vicariously.

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those, who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in a human condition” ~ Graham Greene

I write to come to terms with reality - a reality that is so often a far cry from desire, from hope, from expectation. I write to reimagine reality for fiction often is so much more comforting. I write with purpose, to seek purpose, when the world has forgotten its purpose and we all wander aimlessly drunk on ennui. I write to escape the madness of life. I write to find comprehension of my melancholia that often eludes comprehension.

"Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself. ~Franz Kafka

I write to find myself. I write to keep my solitude company in the absence of company. I write to see myself in all its dark reality. I write to confront the demons within, to face the Hyde that resides within and that has of late, in my quiet, decided to reveal itself more and threatens with self-destruction.

“Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.” ~ Don Delillo

I write to save my sanity, to save my own identity - that is different. I write to love myself. I write to create false hopes that are so necessary for life to proceed. I write to remind myself that there is strength in being apart from the crowd. I write to know that if I were in the crowd, I would not be able to write.

I write because there is pain. I write to save myself.