Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

Despite bitter claims to the contrary, I have been writing for myself for some time. It is past time that I begin to make something of it which I can share with the world. Truth is a funny thing – the more and more you pull at it, the more there is pull at. Yet, I find I never tire of the pursuit of truth, so long as I can find joy along the way. Truth be told, not all truths are joyous, but facing the pain in some truths leads to the pleasure and joy of the enlightenment we can gain from facing them.

I remain a very fallible person. In fact, as I get older I find it harder to tell whether I am even growing wiser or more foolish. I hope it a sign for the former that I increasing find the concern humorous, if not worthless. We each have one life to live, and I have always intended to live it. The challenge for me, rather, is that I realize now that our fallibility is no weakness. Human frailty is simply a matter of limitations which all life shares with us – likely for good reason. So I must make choices and accept that I may not do everything despite a certain boyish desire to do just that.

Perhaps that is why I keep coming back to writing: on the blank page anything is possible. Many lives may lived in excerpts of imagination. Problems may be posed and answers analyzed. Most of all, I find that it is in the crafting of ideas through language that I feel most myself, even as I play at being someone – or something – else entirely. I recently realized that the key for meaning in life may be in facing the assured hypothetical: what if this is it – all you ever do – and no one else cares: was it worth it?

As it regards writing and a few other activities, I can answer an unequivocal “YESSSS!” because if nothing else I feel a little better as a being in this strange existence every time I even try regardless of the results.

Of course, then there are those wonderful moments when it becomes apparent that a connection to another mind has been made. These thought-sparks I am compelled to throw catch fire in the ready hearth of another mind previously less inclined. That is one of life’s greatest rewards by itself.