Every person’s condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries they would put. We act it a life, before we apprehend it as truth.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Years ago, a psychic I visited on Dupont Circle told me I would be a famous writer. She said it was in my cards. I thought that was great. Like a fortune from a fortune cookie that you keep because it gives you good news, I remember that prediction vividly. From the time I was a small child working on poems in secret in our basement, writing has been close to my heart. Writing has been my truth as I have studied, graduated, and pursued professions. Writing has been my truth as I have gotten good (never great) grades, completed a dissertation, submitted reports, and received grants. Writing has been my truth in the most nonlinear, fire building, whisper to a shout, figure it out as I go along, start before I am ready kind of way.

One of my favorite pieces of writing advice is simply that writers write. (How do you know are a writer? You write.) There are important distinctions, like professional writers get paid to write, but my thought remains – writers write. Rejection from publishers. Silence from friends and colleagues. No traffic on my bog. Glaze-eyed confusion when I explain the Wide-Awakeness Project. These things don’t keep me from writing and being a writer. They simply can’t and don’t. Writing makes my voice clearer. Writing gives me better questions. Writing feeds my curiosity. Writing brings me frustration in the worst, “I care about this enough to work really hard” kind of way. Writing brings me joy.

That is what happens in the living. In the living, we find the sweetness and the sorrow of the journey. In the living, we are constantly becoming. In the living, we are who and what we are. In the living, I am a writer.

https://kitt.global/march-3-in-the-living-mark-nepo-the-book-of-awakening/