Thoughts on writing

I am a writer. It's my gift, the natural skill I have to deal with life. No huge muscles or streetwise cunning, no male-supermodel looks to make millions by looking pensively just to left of camera. Is the pen mightier than the sword? Not in a fistfight, but in the ensuing court case it probably is ;).

I don't know how it happened, I just started writing poetry in year 11 after being inspired by my english teacher. To him I owe a great and eternal debt of gratitude; for it was him that provided me with that spark, the slight supportive push to go with it and revel in poetry and prose... and in being a writer.

"Cogito, ergo sum."

Rollins stands onstage in front of thousands of people and screams "I'm a LIAR!" as they hurl themselves up and down, into each other, on top of each other... But always keeping an eye on the man with the tattoo. People stand at galleries, staring for long minutes at a time at the shapes of a simple Renoir; pay millions of dollars for a single painting. People see an athlete score a try for their team and they scream and shout with elation...

But a writer is denied these outpourings, for the writer is confined to paper; to simple text. It is not an immediate and obvious art, people cannot look on what you've done and get an immediate impression. It takes time and effort, and the disposition to look for deeper meaning than the instant impression gained from simple images or events for a reader to see what the pages before them hold.

To those with my love of writing and the written word, please keep the spark alive. We live in a world that is happy to sit in front of a box and be told what to think. We are stuck with the generation that is rapidly losing sight of romance; losing any soul, tradition or meaning. Why is it that people don't see this happening? Why is it that so few of us realise where we are going? We are sliding down a greasy slope towards a world devoid of romance, and with that comes a world with no place for the romantics. The future is not bright, or clean; it is greasy, low-brow and base. The social consciousness is becoming a vacuum or mindless, mechanical breathing.

In space, no-one can hear you scream.