Why try to avoid the thing that will give you peace? Why avoid the call to WRITE?
Write because you’ve got something to say, something to discover, something to share. Write because, in the grand scheme of things, you’re really a writer at the core.
Don’t worry about how things will shake out, about how you will make your living, just now. I know you’re concerned with the thought of becoming too isolated, of not doing enough to enter into the humanity of things and to be of service to the world. But these are fears which are keeping you from doing the work that’s asking to be done – and if you would sit down and keep to it, you’d see that many of the dilemmas sort themselves out on their own.
You’d find, in fact, that the writing leaves you feeling a little lighter, a little unburdened – and that’s because you’re dumping out the chaos that’s filling your head and assembling the pieces into something more digestible.
Not to say that the process of finding Truth is easy. There are times when you will stumble your way through the dark, trying to find the barest of scraps to hold onto. But there is value in that, and there is value in laying things down just as they are, unpainted and unscrubbed. To earth out the reality of things – that is your goal.
So don’t think that, by writing, you are divorcing yourself from reality. On the contrary, you are doing the work of sorting out the pieces of your life – the pieces which have seemed so fragmentary – and finding the meaning in them. Your desire, I think you’ll find, is not to escape the reality you live in, but to inhabit it more fully, with more understanding and grace.
And I believe – but you will have to wait and witness this for yourself – that the act of writing will lead you to conversations and meetings with real people who have real things to say about the things you’ve written. Think of it, perhaps, as a bond that connects your mind to the minds of passing strangers – strangers who may one day turn into friends.
So enjoy the fruit of your words, for life is meant to be celebrated, not despaired of. Time to let loose the restrictions that keep you cleaved to a mistaken and shrunken idea of truth, and instead embrace the way that is broad and colorful and full of the ups and downs of being fully alive – pen in hand, so that you’re poised and ready to record it all.