Crisis of Faith

     Why can't I write? I'm looking at the clock in my room like it's my personal executioner... the creature that will inevitably be my downfall. The hours keep passing and time keeps on slipping, and yet I can't even manage to get three consecutive sentences together. I struggle with my adjectives, I mourn for my narrative, and I am ready to kill myself for a single paragraph of honest prose. And yet everything that comes forth is like insignificant steam: scattered at the slightest gust.

     Night used to be my closest friend. In my adolescent years as a self-proclaimed writer, the hours between dusk and dawn were my own private Renaissance: hours upon sleepless hours were spent working the keys, weaving words into magnanimous tales and epic anecdotes that flowed easily from will. Rest was for the wicked and dishonest, and I was convinced that I was sacrificing for a greater good in the form of the written word. Never once did I find myself lacking.

     Now, only a few years later, I find myself dreading the darkness. The years seem to be catching up to me, and yet despite the added experience, I cannot muster the same verve I once did. When I used to stay awake creating, now I linger awake in bed... pondering a potentially wasted potential as my mind remains mute. There is no greater hell than living in a waking nightmare, fearing your faith has been shattered upon the rocks of reality. 

     So much of my life has been dedicated to the page that I cannot comprehend existence without it. My life is but a superfluous ballet meant to occupy until the hopeful moment of accomplishment. But what if the words have abandoned me? Is it possible to fall so far into the abyss of mediocrity and repetition that the spark leaves us when we need it most? Responsibility is a game we all must play, but is it really a gumption trap that slowly, methodically drains us of the passion we once pursued unquestioningly? If this is the existence people settle for out of necessity, then I reject the reality of the majority. 

     Time is an illusion we place upon ourselves and each other to try and dictate life on our terms. This is a fallacy: no matter what actions we take, events unfold as they will. Fear is what drives people to abandon their ambitions and to settle for an acceptable experience. But a life is not worth living if it is a life of compromise and surrender. 

     Life has been difficult lately. In a rare moment of optimism, I'd like to attribute my linguistic languor to said difficulties. But the truth is, I have only myself to blame. Even if the pratfalls of my life are responsible, they are entities I inevitably created of my own accord. Because the truth is, every obstacle is a result of our choices, our actions. So I say I want to be a writer... how great, right?

     But what the hell does it mean, being a writer? I'm so tired of the aphorisms and cliches that the outside world assigns to my natural-born profession. No, I'm not a sweater vest wearing pseudo-academian, too preoccupied expounding on Shakespeare and T.S. Elliot to write down a damn piece of prose. I'm anything but a walking plagiarism of societal irony and "indiness" that pursues writing as some greater-than-thou art form. And clearly, I am no celebrity, paid ungodly sums to transcribe my 'memoirs' to a ghost writer on my self-depricating fame.

     Nope. I'm just another rat running my course in this misanthropic pulp-novel known as life. So then why do I write? While I ask myself that question on a daily basis, the truth is monumentally unexciting. Words are the only thing that make sense to me, and seem the only appropriate method to express my disinterest and dissatisfaction at the state of things. So I scribble gibberish, hoping to highlight my general distaste of the world before me.

     But the sad truth is that writing is anything but romantic. The modern day life of an anonymous writer is one of squalor and self-loathing that inevitably ends in a cascade of insanity, a litany of forgotten loves, and an unending typhoon of booze and sorrows. 

     And yet, in the most depraved sense of humor, to those of the disposition... it is the only road that offers comfort, comprehension, and levity. To truly understand writing I guess you have understand nothing in the real world, because only in the artificial do you find solace...