To Be or Not to Be

I don’t know the point at which one earns the title of writer-with-a-capital-W, but I’d like to believe it doesn’t take a fancy degree or a Pulitzer prize to recognize as one. If writing qualifies as art and art is to be a universal commodity, than the ability to achieve writer status should be universally available. After all, to write is to express oneself through words in a physical medium and to express oneself is to be human. So, therefore, the simple act of being human should, in turn, qualify one as being a writer. This being said, I am a human (or so I’ve been told) who favors self expression through a physical medium and thus should qualify as a writer. I mean, I have the ink-stained fingers and the shelves of journals to prove my dedication yet, there is a certain disbelief that arises when I proclaim myself to be one. Lips purse and eyebrows raise as they look between each other, mentally scratching my name from their carefully calculated scorecards. Though their statements and questions are innocent enough – ‘That’s quite a difficult field to make a name in,’ and ‘Education would be a more practical route, don’t you agree?’ – I have learned to read between the lines in their t’s and the dots in their i’s. Unfortunately, majoring in practicality was never a part of my ten year plan. Then again, maybe my lack of numerical figuring and safety net securing is the source of my twitching pen. Let’s face it, there isn’t anything logical or practical about assuming that other people care enough about my thoughts and expressions to actually read them. And there isn’t anything realistic or sensible about expecting others to connect with the maniacal ramblings and vague metaphors that somehow find their way into nearly every piece of celebrated literature (Virginia Woolf I’m looking at you). But maybe that’s the point; maybe writing is more concerned with the ‘what if’ rather than the ‘what is.’ Maybe the point of writing is to pick up where the numbers and formulas turn from asphalted road into overgrown trails. And maybe, the societal fascination with an art form that is a decidedly impractical profession comes from the innate human desire to dream. While practicality is, admittedly, a necessary facet of human existence, it has no place in the land of fantasy and fictionalization. And besides, who are we or they or them to determine the practicality of tea-stained lined paper and empty pens in comparison to pressed trousers and briefcases full of data sheets and analytic documents. Is one not as valuable as the other? Is the relationship between words and numbers dissimilar to that of the moon and the sun? And, if we are to claim that one can exist without the other, are we to also doom ourselves to an eternity of burning days without finding repose in Morpheus’s hospitality? Can we survive in a land governed by blinding truth without ever setting foot in his realm of sleeping shadows and  subconscious storytellers? Because while scientific theorems and mathematical equations can provide fact, they have not yet mastered the concept of fiction. No, for that is a beast best tamed by those who are slaves to their imaginations; by those who spend endless nights playing wastepaper basketball with their mistakes, each incorrect letter adding a new limb to a hanged man until all of the spaces are strung together into words and sentences and stories. So enter the writers– armed with pens and paper, pictures flicking through their minds like a movie on repeat, working frame by frame to piece together the myths and legends that have become the skeletal framework of religion, history and humanity. At the end of the day, maybe being a writer is not “the most practical option to ensure financial success in modern world,” but it is a necessary option nonetheless. And maybe becoming a teacher or a biochemical engineer would be more logical but at what point do we sacrifice happiness for security? Personally, I’d much rather be deemed impractical than doomed to be unhappy. So I’ll keep my quill and my parchment and you can keep your e=MC^2 and your imaginary numbers. And, if you ever need to find me, just follow the crumpled paper trail.