Writing as Obsession

We do not write because we want.  We do not write for fortune or fame.  We do not write for things external.

We write because we must.  

There is a deep compulsion to put thoughts to words.  When thoughts float around in the head, they do not appear as real as when committed to paper.  As they are put to paper, they acquire energy and power and life that as floating thoughts, they are close to nothing.  Once put to paper, they are no longer the same thoughts.  This is often shocking to we writers.  We think, then write, and then are shocked to see the thought written.  It is a different kind of reality.  Thoughts are fleeting.  Fleeting thoughts written often create fear.  Temporary things becoming potentially immortal is not something we humans know quite how to deal with effectively.  An immortal person is called a god.  An immortal thought is written as word, and we do not have a special word to call this uncanny transition.  

Once I paused and took note of the attitude of non-writers toward the written word.  It strikes fear in many.  Talking is fleeting - like the wind.  The written word seems permanent and unchanging.  Writing is also a different reality.  Since its significance is in permanence, to a non-writer, this is uncanny.  I read my thoughts from journals 20 years ago.  I was the thinker of the thoughts, so thus, they seem somewhat real, but frozen in time.  The problem is that non-writers do not remember the events.  Remembrance of some events to the non-writer strikes great fear in many.  Thus, we writers are scary to many people.  When words pour out, we know that they come quickly, and we are accustomed to change.  But to the non-writer reading words, these things appear scary and real.  The fact that something is captured as a thought in time seems to be a capturing of the soul.  

Words are magic.  With the proper craftsman, words can bring nations to heel, inspire an army, and conquer the world.  Words are dangerous.  Words are more weaponized than what soldiers use.  Napoleon once said that one writer was a strong as a platoon of 1000 men with guns.  

The magic, the creation, the remembrance, the play with the past, present and the future - we writers must write because we participate in this magic - the most powerful and real magic imaginable.