Inner Reflections

Fooling Myself

I must have been trying to fool myself, when I thought I'd become a technical writer.

Strike that. I was fooling myself. Actually, I was selling out. I looked at my need to make a living, my desire to write, and said "yeah, this is still writing."

But I'm not technical writer. My writing doesn't "flow to order," it comes in fits and starts. So even though I was "still writing," my choice didn't make me feel like I was getting closer to what I wanted, it made me feel like I was getting further away. What's more, I developed a dislike for the written word, my creative spark slowly atrophying in the face of duller-than-dishwater writing assignments.

I sometimes wonder how many writers "never become," on account of the very simple need to make a living. Or does the lack of becoming have little to do with making a living, and everything to do with that person's approach... their perception of the next step as an "obstacle," or merely a "challenge?"

At some point, I thought I would write.

But I seldom write, because writing takes away valuable time from activities that might actually help me buy food, pay the rent, put gas in the car.

As I contemplate this, I sadly realize that I remain quite low on the scale, in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

There's always the next lifetime, I suppose...