For those of you who haven’t yet heard the news, I finished my bachelor degree almost two weeks ago. Good news, hooray, whoopee!
Like many other graduates who strenuously persisted through this bore of a course, I have no intention of practising in the field that I have studied. Wearing a suit everyday, from 8am til 6pm, Monday to Friday, and sometimes on Saturday, for the rest of my life, until death do us part, is not a coffin I have any interest in lying in. The legal world is not one I want any part of, nor is it one that I will fall into upon all else failing.
I have no safety net. And I prefer it this way.
The question then is: What will I do with the rest of my life? And the answer to that is extraordinarily simple:
I will write. And aside from writing, I have not the slightest of clue.
Nope. Didn’t do this throughout my childhood and I’m not a girl.
But you want to know what the funny thing is; unlike many other writers, I don’t consider myself to be a writer. My childhood didn’t involve me buried under cotton sheets with a flashlight, staying up past my bedtime so I could indulge in the classic words and works of the Dickens’s and the Joyce’s and the Blake’s. The only time I ever felt a desire to write a novel was when I was 10, where I wanted to prove a point to my teacher that writing a “long story” couldn’t be so difficult; from memory, I wrote about 2 pages before I got bored. My parents were never educated nor had they any interest in the liberal arts, and so pursuing a path of writing was never considered a noble pursuit nor was it ever or at all encouraged; law school was the only virtuous pathway as it was perceived as a means of providing for a prosperous future that would gain me an acceptable social standing – something that is apparently common in immigrant families of the lower-middle classes.
No, I didn’t grow up wanting to become a writer, I had no appreciation for the master wordsmiths until my late teens, and though I had always shewn a natural ability to play with words in English and in my studies of literature, this was merely, in my mind, a way to obtain a score that was high enough to gain me entry into law school.
So why then, do I claim that I have no choice but to “be” a writer, per se?
It is simple:
Because I’m crazy!
People ask me why I don’t just become a lawyer, and write on the side. Or, why I don’t find a regular full time job, and write on the side. Or why I don’t find part-time work as a retail assistant or a barista, just so I can do enough in order to get by, you know, to live under a roof and eat real food, and write on the side. And, though I understand how difficult it must be for some to believe or understand this, I just can’t.
It has been documented that Ludwig Wittgenstein, a famous philosopher known for his work on logic and mathematics, did not actively seek out to solve philosophical problems, but rather, his tendency was to be struck by such problems almost against his will. “Its dilemmas were experienced by him (Wittgenstein) as unwelcome intrusions, enigmas, which forced themselves upon him and held him captive, unable to get on with everyday life until he could dispel them with a satisfactory solution;” taken from Ray Monk’s account of Wittgenstein, The Duty of Genius. And it is in this same way that I am held captive to my own mind, which will not allow me to pursue anything other than the object of its own desire.
You don’t have to be a genius to be crazy.
I have been burdened with an overactive imagination since childhood. And though it sometimes has its benefits, sometimes it’s a plain pain in the ass. For one, it has caused my body to feel depression to extremes that have had me contemplating suicide for years on end, without remission. It has meant that developing relationships with people is rather difficult, leaving feelings of isolation, segregation and loneliness to burgeon within my being from out of nowhere. And yes, it has also meant that in order for me to maintain my sanity, or at the very least, any vestige of sanity that intermittently surfaces for me to clutch at, I must provide a conduit through which these mental frustrations are allowed to vent.
My success as a writer is not at all important to me; what’s important is that I write, and that I am free to write whenever, whatever, and however.
In the same way that lactic acid can, in extreme circumstances, poison the person pushing his or her body beyond its natural limits, my mind acts as a poisonous sort of cancer to my body if it is not granted what it wants.
Without intending to sound like a dramatist:
I don’t live to write, I write to live.
That sentence made me vomit in my mouth a little, but indeed, it is quite true.
This passion of writing would be more aptly labelled as an addiction. I, the person behind the brain, am a slave to its persuasion. I don’t particularly like the idea that my options are so limited, but I just don’t have a choice.
Humans-are-thinkers. Sometimes, people’s thoughts get the better of them.
That’s impressive. I like that you’re willing to do what you want, regardless of what everyone else thinks! Why didn’t you do arts in university though? Surely that would have been more engaging and exciting?
In my final years at high school, I had this thing known as chronic fatigue (you’re just tired all the time, as in, struggle to get out of bed) and depression (probably a good thing I had the chronic fatigue, I think it was a survival mechanism; if you’re tired, you’re not going to jump in front of a train) so I didn’t have much of an idea what I was generally doing, so my mum’s influence was all I could go with. And, to be honest, I didn’t even know what an arts degree was. I was that out of it, I didn’t really know what anything was. All I knew was that I had to try and focus on study to get into law school.
And thanks. Though, it did take a lot to get to this stage. After high school, my focus was on trying to free from myself from the need for money, general consumption. If I could accomplish that, I knew that I’d be able to find my passion, so to speak, and then focus on that passion thing without the burdening restraint of feeling a need to make a living. And, the depression stuff doesn’t really give me a choice either, it’s like a bully that picks on me whenever it decides I’m not doing what I should be doing … according only to the brain fella. It’s a confusing game.
There you go, another short essay in response to a, well, kinda complex question I s’pose.
Thanks again.
Thanks for sharing and being as honest as always. I’ve seen you’ve talked a bit about zen and buddhism. I think it’s a path that could really help you to control your mind a little bit better. Have you done much meditation? Have you gone to check out meditation groups? They’ve been a big help for myself. I used to get panic and anxiety attacks.
On another note, I’m happy about your choice. Like you, I had some pressure for law school. I finished another bachelor’s and almost did it, but I’m happy I didn’t. Glad you’re following what you feel is right. Keep it up, and I enjoy your writing. So keep writing!
Thanks much for the kind words. I don’t meditate in group situations, but I try to meditate whenever I get a spare moment, like, literally in every crack of spare time that opens up in between my work, which is rather frequent, especially considering I don’t have a real job. I’ve found that meditation groups are filled with people who think meditation is some serious business, and I’ve found that it evokes supercilious attitudes from those claiming that they’re after peace. I much prefer my own company.
You’re right though, meditation is great. Without it I’m sure I’d be dead or in a mental asylum. Though, and as a funny irony, meditation has also led me to the path I’m on. Without it, I’d have been caught up in a life that wasn’t mine. It’s almost like a drug, the more I meditate, the clearer things become, and the less I feel inclined to submit to social standards. Though, that’s were the catch comes into play, it also means that the depression/anxiety will hit me ten fold if I stray from the path it, the meditation, has dictated to me. If that at all makes sense? I’m a bit frazzled now post school, it’s as though the stream flowing through my brain has had the valve released, and so I’m catching up on six months worth of thought I had to neglect for the final semester.
And good work for avoiding it. A lot of my American friends feel that it’s a necessary move … I really don’t think it is. What did you study, I’m assuming undergrad?
I don’t know about meditation, but yoga is great! Highly recommended.
From one law graduate to another, I know what you mean. Have you considered legal academia in the form of legal research? Then you get to research the law and write about it! – You’d have to love writing about the law, though.
Everything about law suffocates my person. From legal research, to legal writing, to the formalities of it, to the abstracted concept that it represents, to the people who are typically drawn to it (including a large element of my self), to the churches that hear its proceedings. My only interest in law is knowing about what it is, so that I can poke holes into its logic. I thought you were a journalist for some reason? As in, studied journalism? Granted, even if I was right, what journalists now days don’t study law? Law seems to represent a more esteemed business degree, in that its application is so general.
Yoga wise, I’m lazy, but more or less importantly, can’t afford yoga. It’s expensive in Aus. Though I do enjoy it whenever I’m doing it. It basically is a form of meditation, one that incorporates physical activity.
My writing is my obsession due to my distortion. Every thought I have becomes dominated – sometimes with violence, so that it ‘will’ fit into a compartment within my head. My thoughts are reduced down into a concise form. An aphorism. So that they can be pulled out, often, and analysed all over again. Sick.
Logic, I think, is merely the act of clarifying one’s thoughts. Whatever works for you is what you should pursue, I s’pose. Some people paint, we write. I’m inclined to verbosity, you’re inclined to brevity. I also like to point out obvious things, just because, to prove my aforementioned sentence, I am disposed toward loquacious ramblings.