To What Point and Purpose?

Perhaps every writer reaches a point when he wonders what is the purpose of his writing, when all seems dry and fruitless, when he wants to give up but cannot.  I have reached that point.  It may be that my perfectionism has reared its ugly head again, making me realize that, no matter how well I write, my writing will never be good enough.

Surely there is purpose to our writing despite its flaws?  For certainly no one else will ever write what we would and should we fail to obey the insistent call to write, the world would lose some unique piece of its puzzle.

So we must write on, against all doubts, all fears.  We must write even for a purpose we cannot see.

Yet we must not write in vain.  For it is vain if we hold up our first efforts as a work of genius that the world must adore.  Instead we must look lovingly at our frail attempts, smile upon our faults, and carry on.  We must write and write again and rewrite until it is polished—until it is as perfect as we can make it.  For we must not blanket the world with shoddy writing, but with great art.  Even if we find ourselves laughing bitterly at the possibility that we should ever create something great, still we must go on: for if we write on when we cannot, then we know not what realms we shall reach beyond ourselves.

Therefore, begone demons of despair!

We will write on, even if it be futile.  At least for the moment we can stave off the darkness.  We await the light of dawn to shine upon what we have wrought unknowingly.