My Motives for Writing

I often consider what keeps me from writing more frequently. Many times I've stare at a blank text box ready to transcribe my thoughts into words but end up closing the window, leaving it all unsaid. I often have so much to say (sometimes unpleasant things) about the people I interact with but I am afraid bridges burned are not so easily mended. Sometimes I am too lazy to spend the time to write it all out because I know my thoughts well enough without having to put them on paper. I saw writing as something done for others, not for own benefit. Other times I find myself limited by my vocabulary and writing skill to express the complexities of the thoughts I am having. By changing the purity of thought into the impurity of language, something is lost. So anything I could ever write would never do justice to the thought upon which the writing is derived. It is with these reservations that I write this book.

[In a later section, I will talk about taking caution around poetic language that invokes emotion.] So what then are my motives for writing? I've thought a great deal about the condition of our race. I see a trend of youthful naivete turned resigned complacency. I see people living inconsistent lives that can only lead to mid-life crisis. I see undertones of existential angst in the zombies of nine to five. I see the vast majority of our race dodging the eternal questions, wishfully thinking that answers will come. But answers won't come to the lethargic. And maybe the answer to some of those questions is that there is no answer, that we are fated never to know, but even those realizations can only come through blood, sweat, and tears. In a world with so many mind-numbing distractions, a looming population, and invulnerable capitalist institutions, it is easy to become lost or feel insignificant. It is this ennui that I fight against. But as noble as this motive is, it is only tertiary.

My primary reasons for writing this book are for myself. By writing this book, I will finally be able to share the burden of my thoughts. It is the last step I must take to attain my nirvana. If I should, one day, sell my soul to the corporate devil and forget to buy it back, let these writings serve as a testament to my future self that I was once free and happy, uninhibited by the demands of The System. May this book remind me of the merits of brutal honesty.

Finally, I am writing this book so that others may check my views. Too often, people keep their deepest beliefs guarded even from themselves. They forget to double check their methods and results. Under the shields of pride and fear, unchecked thoughts begin to fester. This sort of mental/spiritual [I have some issues with spirituality that I will discuss later.] cancer can only end in fanaticism or insanity. My statistics professor is mathematically brilliant but he has lost his mind precisely because of this reason. He believes the bible is written in code; his decryption method, complex beyond belief. In two hours of explanation, I can translate only half a page by his method. It is complete nonsense, not because it doesn't make sense because it does. It's nonsense because an infinitude of alternatives makes more sense. It's sad to see a statistics professor make such a basic error in probability. And it is this irony that I wish to avoid.