cause you're bored and you can doesn't mean you should

I always won­der if I’ll ever reach such a com­plete peace that I’d stop writ­ing com­plete­ly. One of the rea­sons I start­ed this blog was to have a place where I could get things down and sort my thoughts out on a page, but I don’t need to do much of either nowa­days.

I know so many peo­ple who’ve con­tin­ued writ­ing, even after find­ing that kind of hap­pi­ness in their lives. Unfortunately, hap­pi­ness has robbed them of lit­er­ary inspi­ra­tion, and now they have noth­ing inter­est­ing to say. It would­n’t be so bad if they stopped writ­ing, but they post for the sake of post­ing instead of hav­ing some­thing to say or express or vent, and it reeks of des­per­a­tion and inse­cu­ri­ty.

I used to wor­ry that hap­pi­ness would make me a bor­ing per­son too, but now I would­n’t mind as long as I real­ized it and gave up this blog. It’s so embar­rass­ing to write out of a belief that it’ll make you inter­est­ing. Or even worse, to be obliv­i­ous to the fact you’re writ­ing about the most inane things.

8 comments

  1. I won­der if hap­py peo­ple real­ly lack lit­er­ary inspi­ra­tion, and have noth­ing inter­est­ing to say. I think there should be plen­ty of good and hap­py writ­ers.

    • You’re right, but I sus­pect that most hap­py peo­ple who are also good writ­ers were hap­py to begin with. They aren’t fueled by suf­fer­ing, so they can write with­out it.

      I guess I tend to be drawn to peo­ple who need to suf­fer to write, cause I’m the same way myself.

  2. The writ­ers I have over­heard via Twitter and var­i­ous oth­er blogs have all pre­sent­ed them­selves as work­ing writ­ers; as in, hap­pi­ness has noth­ing to do with it; it’s a dis­ci­pline they make them­selves par­tic­i­pate in dai­ly to keep from falling into a pit of dry­ness. If they can present them­selves on an inspired and hap­py day, it’s a wind­fall. The rest of the time, it is WORK, and they work at it dai­ly.

    For me, I gave up because my hap­pi­ness no longer poured itself into words; but rather into objects. When unhap­py I sus­pect the man­u­fac­ture of objects seems too over­whelm­ing and words are then eas­i­er. Sadness comes from a very still place; mak­ing things comes from an active place for me. Is your pho­tog­ra­phy your active hap­py place? It seems it, look­ing from out­side in.…

    I know what you mean, some blogs now seem so sad­ly labored. It’s a rare hap­py per­son that can con­tin­u­al­ly write.

    • I under­stand how writ­ing can be a busi­ness like any oth­er; some peo­ple need to be in the mood for sex while oth­ers can do it on demand for mon­ey, some writ­ers need to be inspired while oth­ers are able to cre­ate sim­ply because it’s their job.

      I’m not sure I know what you mean by sad­ness com­ing from a still place. Photography isn’t an out­let for me, because it’s more about cap­tur­ing moments than try­ing to express some­thing.

      • So, you’re able to feel like pho­tograph­ing — no mat­ter how you feel? You don’t have to be in the mood for it?

      • Yeah, I guess because there’s no mood involved for me when I’m try­ing to cap­ture some­thing. In that sense, pho­tog­ra­phy is less of a cre­ative out­let for me.

  3. I’ve always been inane… so what­evs. That said, I don’t ever force myself to post because I ‘should’ or it’s ‘been so long’.

    • I don’t find your writ­ing to be inane at all. You may not have a mes­sage in all your entries, but you always have a sto­ry to tell, even it’s about some­thing sim­ple.

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