my lot is an odd one.

i wish i could call myself a writer. but words fail me too often, and silence is all that rings inside my skull. he weight of the word frightens me. what, i, me, myself- if i exist at all- a writer?

a human perhaps, a person maybe, an editor definitely. but writer- that's one label that would scare the pants off of me if i wore any. ahem, never mind that.

writers, we are told, taught and made to remember are responsible. they [re]invent the wheel, they force social change and foster unease and unrest. they are activists, they are the zeitgeist.

they are dangerous. they can wrap you in coccons of the softest silk, they can ensnare you and guile you with words. they can lead you up to humpty's great fall. and leave someone else to pick up the pieces- they're far too busy picking up royalties, pulitzer's and contracts.

they cheat you. and you still love them and crave for more.

more stories, more webs, more enchantments. more lies.

bt then, what's so enticing about trth anyway? we've all lusted after it, sought it and thoght we had it, only to discover that it was fool's gold. no, truth is bleak and bitter. it may not ensnare you but it cannot enchant you either.

the scribe pushes you out into a cold, hard world. the writer pulls you into the comforting warmth of a fleecy duvet.

i know i'm committing the fallacy of petitio principii- arging in a circle...inclining towards the begining. but then, to begin is to end, and to end is to begin. period.

and the answer to the original question- i still don't know if i want the weight of the word resting on my puny [albeit rounded] shoulders. but then, that's life! to begin is to end, but before that end there must be a middle.

if i am at the middle, i cannot foresee the end. i will know it only at the end.

prior to that- substance is unknown and unknowable....and i suppose this, like death, is a question i can have no apriori knowledge of!

call me writer. call me ishmael. i don't care.