There’s a tendency – I’m not sure other writers have it, but I know I do – to want to write an artifact. I want to write something that will last forever. Words spoken, they float away in the air. But words written, they somehow seem permanent.
But that’s a cruel joke my mind plays on me.
I want to think what I write here will be around for a long time, perhaps long enough for my future wife, my future kids, my future grand kids, and their future friends to read.
But where’s the certainty or even probability in that? I don’t know that my grand kids will have friends. I don’t know that I’ll even have grand kids. I don’t know that my kids will care to read what I’ve written. I don’t even know if I’ll get married.
How many thousands of words, how many millions have been written only to go unread within the same generation. Why should I think my words will outlive my generation? Who am I to think these words, even these written words, will live longer than any of the others from the past?
Instead, when I can, like right now when I’m present, I try to remember that the most important moment in my words’ existence is the moment I write them down.
If they’re not worth it now, they never will be. The rest, all those future readers or future possibilities if they ever occur, will be a bonuses. And I will be thankful, even if I never collect those bonuses.
I’m writing for now, right now.
