Purpose

It's been a strange, melancholy sort of day, one of those where your mind meanders in all directions while your body goes about on its own, until late in the day you look around and notice where you are and wonder how you got there.


I feel continually on the edge of something these days, as if I were only steps away from a wider world, but I lack something that would allow me to take them... courage perhaps?  Confidence?  Determination?  Talent?


The vain part of me, the writer part (for really what is more arrogant than assuming that of all the books written in the world, people will want to read yours?) wants something bigger. Not fame exactly, but something meaningful, something lasting.  I suppose it's what everyone wants.  We want to know our lives have touched the lives of others.  It makes us feel less alone.  It lets us know where we fit.  We all strive for self-sufficiancy, but we long for other people to depend on us.  I enjoy my days alone, the opportunity for thought and silence, but it is the thought of Aaron coming home at night that gives me purpose.  I write for the love of it, for the imaginative process, for the cathartic release, but to write for people who wanted to read what I'd written would give my imagination purpose.  As it is I can't help feeling a sting of guilt whenever I spend time on the novels that I could have spent doing something more profitable.  I still do it, of course, but to write with freedom of time and singleness of mind is still a far-off dream.


I had planned to post something witty and humorous today instead of this doleful thing, but wit and humor deserted me and shall have to wait for a later date.