Why I write...

As I sit here with my fingers on the keyboard, I pause and wonder- why? The question itself is rhetorical. Of course I have an answer, otherwise why would I ask the question in the first place? The short version is- because I must. I must answer to that nagging inner voice that begs a response, that over-riding inner monologue that craves an outlet. But instead of indulging in the self-serving blatherings of a blog (please feel free to insert 'irony' emoticon here) I choose to sublimate this burning desire into a more benign form- that being my novel. My novel, for those of you who have read it (and equally for those who haven't), is vastly more than the sum of its parts, with depth and intricacies that require far more time to savor and digest than most are allowed to immerse themselves in understanding. It is one part Walter Mitty, one part fantasy, woven together with a generous dose of personal philosophy. And this philosophy is the sum itself. It embodies my morality, my personality, my experiences, my desires, my dreams and ambitions, along with my underlying and pressing need to share these traits with the world. It is my hope for a what I wish could be a better place, a desire to see the change that I foster in myself, the evolution of a mythical world that I can only wish would manifest by itself in the world at large.

But it doesn't. As I scroll through the mind-numbing pile of dreck that constitutes our daily influx of info-tainment, I am deeply saddened by the overwhelming avalanche of garbage that impersonally buries a dearth of substance. The downfall of actual music replaced by shallow and uninspired offerings that masquerade as such, and is laughingly extolled as being 'cutting-edge'. The almost determined avoidance of our so-called leaders in carrying the torch of light into a better future for all. And more.

I miss the old days. This has become glaringly apparent by my recent attempt at reconnection with a large (and growing) majority of my high school chums that harken from those bygone days. It is the essence of Nostalgia. For a simpler time. A time devoid of the electronic diversions that blind us from the reality of the modern world. A time when we still wrote letters, when we communicated with actual words instead of 'text-speak' and emoticons. A world where diplomacy was about awakening, not about commerce. A world where we explored, not conquered, and where a difference of viewpoint- whether it be religious, cultural or whatever, was a cause of quiet celebration, not a basis for division and strife.

And so I continue to write. I write my stories not out of some burning desire for fame and fortune- because if you saw the paucity of my rewards of either, you would question the reason for doing so at all, but to hopefully share a vision of something better, something more substantive, something more- real, than the actuality that we have allowed to come to pass.

And so I write...