Life and Writing

Being a writer, inherently, gives you a very unique outlook on life. On second thought, perhaps it goes deeper than just being a writer. Any sort of story-teller, really, no matter what the medium, looks at the world a little bit differently than most. More specifically, we have a very skewed perception of our own lives.

When things happen to us, we look at it in terms of the overall picture and how the event plays into the story of our life. We have the capacity for assigning deeper meanings and complex metaphors to even the most seemingly simple occurrences and coincidences. We remember certain important conversations with people as little bits of dialogue, and store them away in our memories for later use. Dreams are really tangible ideas that can be turned into elements of stories. We view our lives as one big novel - and dramaticize the good, the bad, and the ugly as necessary.

For me, this has turned into a good thing. It may not be the same for other people, who might view their grand novel as a tragedy and act accordingly. I, on the other hand, have chosen to view my life's novel as a interesting adventure/drama...this may be due to my particular penchant for activities and people that are "interesting", my incredible intolerance to boredom, and my desire to always try new things (even if only once). My personal motto is, perhaps, "Life should always be interesting", and I've often been heard saying that my goal in life is to have an interesting story to tell when I'm dead and talking to other people up in heaven.

I never wanted to sit at a big table with family, friends, strangers, historical figures, celebrities...have them ask me what I did in my life...and only be able to say, "Um...well I was born...went to school...worked...got married...had kids...then died."

No, I wanted to have a lot more to say than that.

So all of this goes back to my outlook in life. Because I've seen my life as this great adventure/drama novel, all of the mistakes that I've made...all of the minor, bad things that happened...all of the fights and tiny dramas...anything that would be a regret...are all okay with me, because even though they were bad at the time, they make my story that much more interesting. It adds the downs to the tale, which make the ups all the more triumphant. I'm able to look at the negative things that have happened in life in a positive manner. All because of that motto. "Life should always be interesting."

I'm not really sure if that's necessarily a good thing. I don't think I was always this way, but I think it's developed with my age and also with my growth as a writer. Maybe it gives me a more reckless outlook towards the things that I do (even though I've always been adventurous within reason...sky diving and other insane things are yet to be checked off my to-do list). Maybe it makes me a little bit restless and impatient for the slow and mundane. It certainly makes it so that certain people can't keep up with me, or maybe don't want to, or see me as too impulsive and fiery.

But I don't think I'd want to be any other way. Because being a writer, and seeing my life as this great novel, has made it so that I'm inherently happy. So as for most of the consequences, they are worth it in the end.