It’s a simple question with a complex answer. Or, maybe it’s a complex question with a simple answer. Either way, it must be contrary, as worthwhile endeavors tend to be. I’ve been asked this question a couple times before, by a couple different people. And each time it happens, a direct answer slips through my fingers.
The truth is, I never set out to change the world. It was always too big, and I was always too small. And words that brought nations together and moved mountains were dictated only by literary geniuses and fictional heroes from imaginary lands. I don’t write because I think my ideas are revolutionary; I’m not going to save the world, or start a movement. At least, I don’t imagine I will.
I write because I want to tell stories. That’s the simple answer to the complex question. Since I was a child, leaning against my mother’s chest while she read to me, I’ve felt this strange euphoria connected with good stories. It’s a feeling that is both sweet and sad: sweet, because it makes me dream of beautiful places and people who stand for something greater than themselves; sad, because the more I dream, the more such fantasies grow beyond my reach.
I write because I used to feel alone in this euphoria. It was both a gift and a curse, to long and hope so hard for worlds I would never see. For journeys I would never go on. For adventures that would never call to me. And disappearing into my own mind was the closest I could ever be to feeling like the hero of my own story.
But the older I get, the more I wonder if this is a feeling many of us share—in one form or another. That, maybe, the nights I spent reaching for the stars when the rest of the neighborhood was asleep, were unknowingly nights spent reaching for others locked in this same longing. And so, I write, knowing that if I can touch even one other lost soul reaching for the stars, then I have done some good somewhere.
That’s the complex answer to the simple question.
I may never change the world. I may never be remembered for my writing beyond my final moments on this earth. But the truth is, that’s not why I write. I write because I love it. I write because I can. I write because I don’t have to.
And I write because I understand what longing feels like.
Fellow Night Owls, why do you write? Why do you read? Why do you create?
