A Distant Dream

        When I first started this blog back in 2017, I mostly wanted to live out my fantasy of being a professional writer. Not that I wrote professionally (I’m still a long way from that, actually), but it was nice to dream of one day being known as a writer, rather than as a college student preparing for a career that I had no interest in but, I was told, would pay the bills. Maybe it would have, I don’t know. I flunked out of college before I could get my degree. Now I live out my dream of writing “Professionally” and I have to say, it’s not as fulfilling as I hoped it would me. I’m not actively miserable like I was in college, so I’ll gladly take that. It’s just that as a writer, I kind of thought I’d have some sort of reach, some sort of audience to win over. I never dreamed that not only would I not have an audience, but I’d have no way of getting one, as far as I know anyways. Keep in mind that when I first started thinking of becoming a blogger, it was 2014. Anyone could have an audience in those days. Now I’d be stunned if even a celebrity could find an audience. 

     It’s really tempting to throw in the towel. I don’t mean abandon the blog. The only thing anyone has left these days are dreams of relevancy, and I’m not giving up mine. What I mean is giving up on the idea of an audience finding me and just writing my thoughts out as a kind of diary. No fear of judgement, no worries about what would happen if someone saw me for who I am, just me writing for the blog the way I write for my “practice sessions”. That was something of an original goal, write down my first drafts for stories in a place where there was just a bit of pressure, than edit for publication. That hasn’t happened, and at this point I have no idea if there will be any place that I could publish my stories in a year. The problem is that I still want to write stories. 

     There are writers out there who only write as a means of paying the bills, but I’m not one of them. I don’t write for the craft, though I greatly admire those who do. I write because I spend more time in my stories than I do in reality. My stories are my world. They’re the core of my identity, and I want a place to share them. I also have a bit of ambition, telling me that stories are only worth sharing if they’re good and if they improve the lives of those reading them. I don’t think my stories do that. I never set out to do that. I set out to tell stories that make me feel better and give my life meaning. I also set out to at least try and give a little bit more meaning to other people’s lives. We sorely need it right now. 

     I think I need to face the fact that my dream of going professional probably won’t come to pass. I’m not entirely sure I want it to, either. I love writing, but I hate the idea of only being allowed to write what my audience wants to read. I’m not scared of not making money doing this. What I am scared of is a future where I have to give this up in order to survive. Our world hates people who create for the sake of it. If you’re a creator, your supposed to create for the sake of someone else, or something else. Everything’s a side hustle, every craft a chance at success. I’m sick of it. Doubly so because it means that every artist’s dream is to make it big, even when it’s not what they want. I wish that we lived in a world where all of us could just do what we wanted to do, without needing to worry about pleasing someone else. Most of us want that, or at least to please someone whose demands are reasonable. I’m an exception. I don’t want to work for anyone and don’t want to depend on pleasing others to stay alive. I don’t think any of us should have to. I think that living in society means sacrificing some of our personalities, but that just means we should work hard to make sure no one has to make that call.