Should I be a writer? When questioned, some professional writers answer in the negative and state. They’re probably wrong. The short answer is yes, but a yes wouldn’t convince me so I doubt it would be a sufficient answer for anyone who has questioned the value of her creations.
But I believe a more thorough answer will be sufficient. Let’s ask the question again and answer it in more depth. Should I be a writer?
When you begin that process of allowing negative thoughts to go circling your mind, they probably go something like this: “I like what I do, but others have a bigger audience and a bigger name. There are others who are more talented, smarter, have more time, and have more connections that will allow them to make what they are creating a hit from the moment it is unveiled.” These statements are insidious because they are a lie woven together with truth. There certainly are others who are more famous, more talented, smarter, who have more time, and who have more connections. Most people are regular people, so most people would be able to say the same thing. When using the above logic, the question “should I be a writer,” and another question, “shoud I create anything,” are answered with a resounding no in your mind.
“Okay,” you say. “The world has a lot of normal who are attempting to create something, but because they aren’t any of those above-mentioned things, they will never succeed.” But I think by saying this, you are misunderstanding art.
Art is a thing created by a human mind that conveys a human experience. Why do we listen to music? Because it connects to a human experience, mainly emotion. Why do we watch movies? Because they sweep us up in a streamlined human experience: the story. Why do people put artwork up on their walls? The shows a specific way a specific human views the world. Similarly, the written word evokes the senses, and with the right combination of words, you can paint a picture of a tranquil mountain lake at sunset. Other forms of art do something similar things, and along with all this, art seems to even have the capability of making us experience something we have never experienced before.
“So what?” you say. “And now we’re back where we started. Some people are more capable of creating art and conveying those experiences, and I am certainly not one of them. The answer to the question, “should I be a writer” is still a no.”
But hold up. I want you to focus on one piece of art for a second. Look at that central idea, that human experience component. Human experience is the heart of art. I don’t think you’ll find too many people who disagree with that. The human and how the human interacts with art is essential to art. Art is always through the lens of human experience. (And yes, this means that I am excluding ‘art’ created by apes and elephants.)
Pick an artistic medium. Pick any one you want and there is probably someone better than you. The chances are that you are the best in the world is astronomical. Now, think about the human experience. Does anyone have expertise on the human experience? Let me ask that in a different way: when talking about art, are some people gifted with a more thorough human experience than others? Do they better understand what it is like to live so many more lives than you that they have the ability to create more relevant and valuable art? No. Each person only has her life to live. Though a person may be very good at imagining what it is like to be another, they, in the end, only have their own perspectives no matter how hard they try and no matter how talented or intelligent they are.
No one has experienced your life besides you. You may think your life is nothing special. You aren’t famous. You don’t do extreme sports. You haven’t traveled out of your state or your country. Maybe you only eat pizza, mac and cheese, kool-aid, and vanilla ice cream. To a certain degree, the points are valid. Experiencing more things is a boon to creating something, but the experience itself is not the core of that created thing. You are the core of that created thing, the fact that you bring a unique perspective to that thing. Maybe you have barely any experiences, but that only means you are going to be able to comment on those experiences in a way that a person who has a deluge of experiences can’t. As humans, it is not good if we have a very small group of people putting out art. Why? Because we are missing something. Instead, we need people of all different kinds putting out art because the more people who are creating something, the more perspectives we will be able to see. With this new information, let’s ask the question again, “Should I be a writer?”
“Is getting more perspectives really important, though?” you continue your asking. “Aren’t some ideas better than others? And if some ideas are better than others, shouldn’t we let those with good ideas say and create things?”
This brings us to the purpose of art. Art conveys experiences through the individual human lens, but its purpose is to help us understand ourselves on a human level. To understand humans, we need more than one human lens. The odd thing is that this isn’t about ideas. Art isn’t a debate. In the past few years, a lot of people have begun to hi-jack art to create statements about the world and how it works. But this is a misuse of art. It is a bastardization of art. Art is meant to show the earnest experiences of a person. These earnest experiences may convey statements about the world, but the main goal of the art is to show that experience. Think back to what I said about the different media of art. Each one was trying to convey an experience in its art, whether that was emotion in music, a painted image, or a sequence of events in a story.
But even with all this explanation of why what you create has value, you still have one more objection: “Should I be a writer when no one is going to read or listen to or look at what I have created.” First, you don’t know that. For all you know, your amateur attempt is going to strike a chord with the entire world. But even if it doesn’t strike a chord with the entire world, do you really think that you are so different from everyone else in the world that you won’t find someone who appreciates what you do? And even if only a handful of people see what you’ve done and you die unknown, all your work left to your children, just think of what you’ve given your children. What have you given your progeny? Something that is intimately connected to you for them to remember you by, and that is as close as they are going to get as actually having you there. If you want fame, this is the least that can become of your art, but when you look at what really matters in life, giving your loved ones something like this is the most important.
So yeah, if you are trying your best to honestly and earnestly convey something through your creations, they have value.
Let’s ask that first question again, and this time, I would like to answer it. “Should I be a writer? Should I create?”
Yes, yes you should.