What makes me a writer? Is it the physical act of my fingertips hitting the keys in new combinations? Is it my pathological desire to collect and disseminate stories? Is it my tendency to stretch the truth in order to make it funnier or more dramatic? Is it the fact that I agonize over every word in every sentence? Am I writer because I write? Am I a writer because I can never bring myself to write? Or am I a writer just because I say I am?

Maybe being a writer is more than an occupation or a topic of conversation. Maybe it’s an alternate reality; a hidden dimension where the unpredictable, the unfinished and the random occurrences of life are woven into coherent narrative.

Maybe it’s a part of the brain that lies dormant in normal humans; an evolutionary leftover; a tiny, subversive piece of the cerebellum that blends fantasy with actuality and produces the chemical responsible for social awkwardness.

Maybe it’s a symptom of modernity; a side effect of a world that moves too fast to be understood. Maybe the writer arises organically in groups that reach critical mass and suddenly require a special processor to filter the blur.

Am I a writer because I have an extra sense? Am I a writer because my brain is miswired? Am I a writer because one in every x people need to be for civilization to survive?

Or am I a writer just because I say I am?

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