I think it’s a fair question that I’d had to ask myself more and more often in recent years, and especially in recent days. The nightmarish whiplash of the current administration creates a desperate desire to do something, somehow stop this emotionally empty ego driven machinery from bulldozing everything to the ground that doesn’t make its leaders more money and temporarily fill the aching void within that drives them to keep feeding the beast of greed that will never be satisfied. My little fiction stories certainly ain’t gonna do that but I keep at it – why? An act of my own ego, yes, but I really do think it’s more than that, and perhaps something that only artists can understand. That’s something that’s missing from this administration – any true creative.

Creatives create because they have to, they’re driven to, because in the end creation is an act of love, of connection, and one that can bring great satisfaction – something the desperate amassing of money can never, ever do. Of course, if you can make money without sacrificing your art, good for you! I’d love to be able to survive writing my stories, but I’ve given that dream up long ago. True creatives don’t create for money, unless it’s simply to have enough money (which translates into time) in order to create what they ultimately what to.

I’ve recently been reading W. Somerset Maugham’s book of reflections, The Summing Up (1938), and was struck by a chapter when he addressed exactly what I’ve been thinking about, albeit 87 years ago. In Chapter 62 he states:

“Sometimes the writer must ask himself whether what he has written has any value except to himself, and the question is perhaps urgent now when the world seems, at least to us who live in it, in such a condition of unrest and wretchedness as it has not often been in before…. I have never been able intimately to persuade myself that anything else mattered. Notwithstanding, when men in millions are living on the borderline of starvation, when freedom in great parts of the inhabited globe is dying or dead, when a terrible war has been succeeded by years during which happiness has been out of the reach of the great mass of the human race, when men are distraught because they can see no value in life and the hopes that had enabled them for so many centuries to support its misery seem illusory; it is hard not to ask oneself whether it is anything but futility to write plays and stories and novels. The only answer I can think of is that some of us are so made that there is nothing else we can do. We do not write because we want to; we write because we must. There may be other things in the world that more pressingly want doing: we must liberate our souls of the burden of creation. We must go on though Rome burns. Others may despise us because we do not let a hand with a bucket of water; we cannot help it; we do not know how to handle a bucket.”

If I had truly followed my passions I would’ve gone to college and writing, but rather, concerned about the state of the world, I studied politics. For years I worked for political nonprofit whose sole aim was to increase political knowledge so that Americans can make better decisions at the polls. Certainly a worthwhile goal, but the years I invested in doing that clearly were not able to hold back the tide of authoritarianism that has washed over all levels of government courtesy of the whims of one maniacal man, hell bent on destroying everything America actually stands for while claiming to do the opposite. Not a day goes by that I wish I had simply done what my heart told me to do and study literature and writing.

The world is a clusterfuck and we must do whatever we can to make a meaningful life for ourselves and positively affect as many around us as we can. For more recent example I point to the Senses Fail song, “Miles To Go” from their 2022 record, “Hell is in Your Head.” It is one of my all time favorite records and the song perfectly sums up everything I feel. Full lyrics below because they’re so killer. Keep at whatever is meaningful for you. Love has to be the main guiding force for all we do if we want the world to actually get better. Leading with the anger, rage, and fear of the current administration will only feed them.

I’m gonna dig a hole to Los Angeles from New York
And we’ll escape this East Coast winter for the warmth
And those were nice ideas in our roaring twenties
But now I’m pushing daisies, suffocated by my thirties
It’s only getting worse and we’re all getting older
Getting older

The ice caps are melting and
The bees are disappearing
The polar bears are dying
Sometimes I wonder why we’re even trying
It’s racing through my mind
We’re running out of time
I just want to fall in love more

I always said I’d rather be poor than unhappy and that’s still true
But everywhere I look’s a reminder of the things I can’t afford to do
Gotta make enough money so that I can retire
Gotta drink enough water so that I can perspire
Somedays I can barely fucking brush my teeth
I haven’t changed my clothes in a week

‘Cause the ice caps are melting and
The bees are disappearing
The polar bears are dying
Sometimes I wonder why we’re even trying
It’s racing through my mind
We’re running out of time
I just want to fall in love more

The world is on fire and the president’s a liar
There’s plastic in the Pacific that will never expire
So what the fuck am I supposed to do?
When I can barely get out of bed
There’s already so much hell in my head
I’m already filled with such doom

The Earth is on fire
It all feels so hopeless
But all I can do
Is love you with all my soul

But the ice caps are melting and
The bees are disappearing
The polar bears are dying
Sometimes I wonder why we’re even trying
It’s racing through my mind
We’re running out of time
I just want to fall in love more

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I’ve got promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep