What does it mean to enjoy writing? What does it mean to be creative? Like, these are questions that come up when you’re trying to create something great. Or something fun. Or just something at all, really. Like academia – my world for the past four years – writing is a lot of time and energy for very little bang. I’m sure everyone on the Te Papa Tupu program knows the experience well: you get home at 6.30, you’re tired, you’re drained, you’ve been working with words all day (even if they’ve got proper jobs, and not little fantasy mahi like me where I’m forced to read arbitrary essays all day for the sake of writing my own arbitrary essays in exchange for arbitrary grades that don’t mean anything at all until I’m applying for my first job, and then nothing at all after that singular moment of life, but to be fair I do enjoy the serotonin boost of getting a nice successful grade back, plus the whole learning thing can sometimes even be fun (contrary to popular belief), and even if they’ve got proper jobs that don’t involve endless essays, they still deal in words; we all do, they’re around us everyday, they’re on billboards and email taglines and the recipe you found on your phone, and dealing with so many words can kinda tire out your mental word-dealing budget for the day, especially when the hardest part about words is pulling them out from scratch instead of simply consuming them) and then the clock ticks to 7.30, 8.30 and then you realise oh damn I should probably do some writing – ya know, that thing that the literal New Zealand government (thank you, Creative New Zealand, you’ll always have my endless gratitude) has putten trust in me to do. Like, thanks bro, now there’s pressure not to feel like I’m embezzling from the national arts sector everytime I can’t be bothered to write.
But then you decide one of two things, right? You sit down at your desk and write. Or, you continue about your night and sleep and try again tomorrow. And that’s okay too, I think. People sometimes see life as a straight line, one train journey where you have to rush from your seat to make sure you get off at the next stop. Because the next stop is Mount Fuji or the Colosseum or whatever other touristy attraction you’ve got on your bucket list, and 1) you can’t miss Mount Fuji before you die, and 2) you have to get off now, therefore, because the linear direction of this journey ensures stops never come again. And I think there can be something motivating and David Goggins-esque about this, sure. Like, the fear of not taking your one shot and regretting it in the future can definitely scare your butt down to the writing chair. Doesn’t this get draining, though? Writing out of obligation? It sure does for me.
Also, I’m undecided on why we’ve all collectively agreed that the direction of this life journey is a straight line that never passes destinations again? Isn’t it more like a spiral? You might kick yourself for not getting into shape over these past few months (years, decades, centuries, millenia, eons, universe-lifespans, insert time relevant for you here), but the chance to do so will come again. You’ll have the thought to sign up to that jiu-jitsu beginner’s class in two months. You’ll have the chance to retry going to the gym in the new year. The stop will come around and around and around, and you’ll have the chance to get off again and again and again. And, eventually, with such a sheer amount of stops, maybe you will? Everything that’s meant to be in your life might occur, just by mathematical probability? Like, even if there’s a 1% chance of you enjoying cardio again, if you go by 100 potential opportunities in your life to get back into it, mathematically it might work out in the end.
And maybe the same thing applies to writing. I know Te Papa Tupu is coming to a close – although not yet! Sydney and Auckland festival writers, prepare to be harassed by a very annoying Law student – and I know that there are no guarantees about what happens to our manuscripts at the end of it. But even if my manuscript falls into the deep dark void of being too trash to professionally publish, only to be read by my friends at my university writing club (who are the nicest critics you’ll ever meet), the train stop of being a writer will come around again. Not Te Papa Tupu, sure. But we’re not, like, barred from ever trying to write a book again if this doesn’t work out. And, really, is being a writer even a destination? Isn’t the experience of writing the same whether you’re Dickens or Rowling or a thirteen-year-old typing away on her first laptop? All it is is telling a story. That’s it. You don’t need to be a New York Times bestseller or a Booker winner to tell stories. Hell, you don’t even need to be a writer. Writing is just one cool way to do so.
I’ve been trying to figure out why writing is good. If I’m pouring so much life into it, right, don’t I need a justification for such spending? And the answer that clicked with me the other day is that, possibly, there isn’t a philosophical justification for why I like to write, for why I should be creative. It’s just a brute fact. And reducing it down to a brute fact seems like an unsatisfying answer to the puzzle, especially for someone who’s addicted to overthinking like me. Though maybe life isn’t a puzzle to solve, but simply a reality to be experienced. Again and again and again, until the train passes Mount Fuji for the hundredth time and I look out the window and go, yeah, maybe today’s the day I’ll finally get off.
