#319 Starting silly small

If writing and creating every day were as vital to my survival as drinking water, ingesting food, and bonding… What would life look like?

Biologically, all behavior is driven by pain, pleasure, and the triggers and habits that come from repeated reaction to those stimuli.

So I eat because I want to escape the pain of hunger – or heartbreak, sadness, and frustration.

I connect with others because I’m neurologically hardwired to feel pleasure when bonding… and pain and deprivation when I’m abandoned.

Similarly, I write because I want to escape the frustration of not being able to put into words an insight.

I also write because I enjoy the rush resulting from finding the words that convey what I want to say.

I write because I love the tingling in my back and neck when I combine those words into sentences with just the right rhythm, just the right cadence capturing the meaning, context, emotion of what I want to say…

I write because writing wrests the essence from the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions racing through my mind and body.

I write because when when I write, I feel that at last, I can make sense of life.

And the more meaning I find, the more likely I am to write.

Writing isn’t hard. Writing every day is – until it isn’t anymore.

That’s when writing becomes hard.

Build the habit, then you get a shot at building the skill.

ChatGPT can write in 10 seconds what would take you hours.

We’re entering an era where what makes us valuable is not economic output anymore.

We can try to compete.

Or we can rethink what still makes our lives valuable when we’re economically obsolete.

I write for the sake of writing.

I play chess for the sake of playing chess.

I learn for the sake of learning.

I sing for the sake of singing.

I love my family for the sake of loving my

I live for the sake of living.

When we lose our economic value, value lies in life itself again.