Those of us who write are quite mad. In more lucid moments we know it, but most of the time our reality is skewed. There are any number of examples. If you write, you know it to be true.
I recently read a study of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Dick had drug addiction issues throughout his life, but he also experienced severe abandonment issues as a child. As an adult he had mystical experiences that sound quite, well, mad.
Whitley Strieber, who is still alive, has been subject to fits and mystical experiences throughout his life as well. Some of his fiction is bizarre, but not as strange as his non-fiction. The list could go on and on. Writers see the world differently than others.
We write and find that others don’t share our point of view. We die and, if we’re lucky, then we become famous. Those who made great statements in their fiction often began, and ended, obscure. Poe was pilloried in his lifetime. Who ever heard of H. P. Lovecraft? Even Mark Twain had to pay to have his books published at first.
It’s madness to keep at this. Still, I can’t stop myself from waking before the sun and writing down my thoughts as the day inevitably approaches. I have so much to say—mad driveling, most of it—but it is an observation about the human condition.
Thinkers throughout history whether writers, singers, or philosophers, have often ended up mad. Our very consciousness drives us insane. Some find followers who understand. Most do not. Some never will.
Madness, I say! All of it madness! And yet I cannot stop myself. Even if I could I would not. There’s something in the human soul that cries out to be heard. And those who cry beg for listeners. Someone take this unbearable pain away!
If they can’t hear my voice, then maybe the scratching of my pen will do. The world, my friends, is an asylum. We, the writers, are its inmates.
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