Why write?

I neglected to explain the random writing piece from a while back, "The Application." Perhaps I should.

I wrote it for a class, called (strangely) "Dangerous Words" and the prompt was to write a letter of application. The professor is pretty funny in the way he "assigns" things, and this was the first assignment (he calls them "5 finger exercises, as we're not supposed to spend a ton of time on them, and they should be short enough to read aloud in class). He basically said:

"Write a letter of application. For the class. As if I were going to select you based on the letter to be in the class. Which I won't, of course. But I will. So it's a letter of application. But you've made a mistake of some kind. In your letter, you are applying to something else. Like to be a slave working on the pyramids. Or something. So you've made a mistake. And you are applying. Okay?"

Ooookay.

So I came up with the idea of applying to be a scapegoat because I had recently dreamed a really wretched but cathartic dream about being made a scapegoat by my lovely and charming parental units (Portland contingent). It was originally much longer, with specific examples of my stellar skills as a bleeting heart (bwah ha ha, sorry, couldn't resist).

Anyway, that's what that's all about.

Now here's another assignment. Dashed off and unedited. In list format (we talk a lot about formats... this could have been an obituary or a letter to god, or Dear Abbey, or a want ad or any one of a million methods of delivery).

Why be a writer? Why write?

Top 10 Reasons To Write:

10) For truth. To get to the bottom of things, peel back the layers, find the ugly and the pretty. Or the nothingness, if that's what yields.

9) To lie. There's usually a nicer looking truth out there somewhere, an alternate ending.

8) To mortify and/or make proud a family of narcissists*, whose crowded stages scarcely leave room to register a speaking part, let alone a punchline.

7) For closure. To bury the myriad hatchets that have been slugged around for decades.

6) For revenge. Against those hatchet-throwers whose bloodied blades will never be granted burial.

5) For freedom. Free to embrace crazy like an accessory, instead of an illness, and live a stimulating life of euphoric highs and cavernous lows in the constant peaks and troughs of The Artist's thought waves.

4) To make trouble. As truth-tellers so often seem to. IF they are at all good at what they do.

3) To get better and better (hopefully) instead of just older and older.

2) To matter. Because we will all die one day.

1) To self-satisfy. Because it feels good to write. A singular, self-directed, pleasurable activity. Like masturbation. Or yoga.

And of course the follow up to this, again from the Prof: What do we avoid by writing, being a writer? (He said it a little fancier than that, and with a more ominous tone).

Top 10 Things to Avoid by Choosing Writing as a Career:

10) Mind-numbing day jobs and slippery corporate ladders.

9) The wretched and painful requirements that come along with having to answer to a higher-up boss type person on a daily basis.

8) Having to get dressed everyday.

7) Legitimacy in society as a "productive member" of same.

6) The boredom of a steady paycheck.

5) Health insurance and any illusion of security.

4) Predictability and the ability to plan for anything, ever.

3) Responsibilities of so-called "adulthood."

2) Expectation.

1) Human interaction.

Next up: How do I want to die?

Not looking forward to that one, I must admit.

Very truly yours,
Ass-in-Chair Amby

*No, not YOU. Of course not you.