Eat. Breathe. Sleep. Write.

Many people ask me "Why writing?" There are many variations, all questioning what makes it so special, why it's my passion, etc. etc.

But really, why not?

I have been told that I was weird for thinking the way I did, for experiencing something and immediately translating it to descriptive words inside my head, for waking in the middle of the night and being unable to sleep again until I write down a phrase that came to me in my dreams, for banging my head against random solid objects in frustration if I cannot properly express something. When I'm inspired, I write. When I'm bored, I write. When I'm emotional, I write. I write even when I'm not writing.

But I guess it's what makes me human, what makes me alive, what makes me me.

And honestly, I don't see how it can be anything else but writing for me. Words are my touchstone, my weapons, and at some point in my life I believed they were the only things I had left. In the noble words of Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III of Fall Out Boy, "I'm all right in bed but I'm better with a pen."

For some it is dancing, or singing, or painting or drawing, or acting, or making music, or even solving math equations or scientific formulas, or cooking. Everyone has that one thing that they cannot possibly live without, one that they must continuously do or they wouldn't at all feel complete.

I can write it better than you ever felt it.

But I think, too, that it is more than that. Part of the joy is working on whatever it is, on creating something, but the other half only comes from being recognized. Don't lie. Whatever it is you do or live for, you want others to notice, to realize what you're saying, to be assured that this is actually worth something. What's the use of words on a page with no one else to read them? I write not only to breathe or to keep the demons in my head silent and happy, but I do so in hopes that when the time comes, my words will make a difference.

These kinds of beauty that we make with our hands or minds or hearts, we keep doing it in hopes that someday, it will all matter to someone. We want to be able to make someone smile when they see what they've done. We want to know that it's not all in vain, that someday our words will be heard, that our 'words' will save someone.

Because it, once upon a time, saved us too, and we just want to return the favor.

I write, therefore I live.