by Asia Smyth

Created on: April 26, 2008   Last Updated: September 19, 2008

On Writing

Though we're all born with free will, destiny is subtly thrust upon us.
Take me, for example. It is irrelevant that I fantasized when I was six
of one day becoming a neurosurgeon, a nuclear physicist, or maybe an actress.
I realized sooner than later that my wandering mind and disdain for discipline
probably wouldn't suit my career aspirations; of course shyness and social anxiety

would have fit right in with life in the limelight... No, I heard my calling;
and it utterly lacks the glamor and excitement of my other dreams.
The writing life is emotionally wrenching, tedious, draining, and based in solitude.
Alas, it chose me. I learned early on that silence is my best friend.
It enables me to tune in to the distant tornadoes of linguistic interpretation,
the lava of vocabulary, the eruptions of metaphors and analogies;
to hone in on these spontaneous storms of inspiration sans advisories,
these biochemical lightning bolts of creative synthesis that strike fiercely
without warning or empathy. My duty is to block out the incessant, intruding buzz
of 21st century society, consumerism and technolust, to lose touch
with the cycle of Maya and commune with cosmic consciousness.
A writer spends most her life in the valley of calm between the storms,
eagerly awaiting wild furtive moments of divine synergy, only to be left
exhausted and dried up like a sun-ripened raisin.

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