What can be done? Say who you are, really say it in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost, someone not yet born, someone who wonβt be born for 500 years. Your writing will be a record of your time, it canβt help but be. But more importantly if youβre honest about who you are youβll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognise him or herself in you and that will give them hope. Itβs done so for me, and I have to keep rediscovering it, its profound importance in my life. Give that to the world, rather than selling something to the world, donβt allow yourself to be tricked into thinking that the way things are is the way the world must work and that in the end selling is what everyone must do. Try not to.
βThis is from ee cummings: βto be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fightingβ. The world needs you, it doesnβt need you at a party having read a book about how to appear smart at parties β these books exist, and theyβre tempting β but resist falling into that trap, the world needs you at the party starting real conversations, saying βI donβt know,β
