Writing is a bitch.
Trying to get your writing published is worse.
I stopped counting when I reached 200 rejection letters.
I stopped counting, but I didn’t stop trying.  Until I did.

I stopped trying.

And then I stopped writing….
As it became apparent that no one cared.
As it became apparent that no one wanted to read what I was writing.
And it wasn’t giving up.

I didn’t give up.

Because.  Where once I had been writing for myself, writing essentially to explain myself to myself, I long ago exhausted the power of that motivation.  I then began writing for others.  Except that no one cared.  No one cared that I was writing for them, and not for myself.  I was wasting my time, and theirs.  So I stopped.  I stopped writing, but I didn’t give up.  I am still alive.

Furthermore….
Once upon a time, when I was writing for myself, when I was writing to explain myself to myself, I also dipped my toes into the cultivation of a deep, still, Zen center to myself.
That, I also stopped.
The difference is that when I stopped writing for myself and started writing for others, that decision was conscious.  I could not tell you how I came to cease the cultivation of a calm, still center to my Self.
But perhaps…I have, unconsciously, been coming back to that pursuit.
I begin to feel that I have, unconsciously, been returning to that cultivation; all without even trying.  As a sort of defense mechanism against this, our shared world.
And now.  Now that I acknowledge this…return.  I am forced to acknowledge that this modern world of ours actively resists such pursuits, such cultivation.
And this resistance is on top of the casual, uncaring, unconscious resistance of the world to whatever kind of writing I once attempted.

This world.
It doesn’t give a living shit about us, the walking dead.  At the same time, it hates when we the walking dead claim not to give that same living shit about it.
This world that we live in is a narcissistic little shit, ain’t it?  Life is a narcissistic little shit.

So now.  Recognizing this progression, these fundamental changes within myself, my relationship with writing, my relationship with the world, and at least some of the interactions thereof, where do I go?

Can I return to the past?  If I no longer feel the absolute need to explain myself to myself, can I return to writing for myself alone?  With these latest essays, I must admit that I have perhaps already done so.  But essays are not fiction – and fiction feels more satisfying.
(And let’s be fair – these essays prove that I still feel some need to explain myself to myself.  But I say again: fiction is more satisfying.)

Where once I used fictional characters and settings to mask discussions with myself regarding my relationship with the world….

Where I once attempted to alter the purpose of writing fiction, and therefore necessarily altered my style, in an attempt to create fiction that appealed to others (and so obviously failed)….

Can I find my way back to writing simply and purely for myself – without resorting to merely having conversations with myself?  Can I find a way to write stories that I find entertaining?  Can I do so, acknowledging and embracing the near certainty that no one else will care, that I will only be whispering into the void and chuckling at my own echoes?
Well, and why not?  Why not take some small lesson from the teachings of the great big world?  Why not cultivate just a tiny touch of narcissism?  As a sort of supplement, an extra layer of armor atop the Zen detachment I have been developing to protect the core of my Self from the world.  If the narcissistic old world will not entertain me, why not narcissistically entertain myself?
I can chuckle alongside the echoes of myself populating an uncaring void.
I hope I can, anyhow.
Because if I don’t, who else will?