unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,

don’t do it.

if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,

don’t do it.

if you’re doing it for money or
fame,

don’t do it.

if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,

don’t do it.

if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,

don’t do it.

if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,

don’t do it.

if you’re trying to write like somebody else,

forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out ofyou,

then wait patiently.

if it never does roar out of you,

do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,

you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers,

don’t be dull and boring and pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-love.

the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind.

don’t add to that.

don’t do it.

unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket,

unless being still would drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,

don’t do it.

unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,

don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it

until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

-Charles Bukowski

I haven't read much of Bukowski's work, but his name pops up in my mind from time to time. That should tell you something about how powerful his words are.

There are very few writers worth a damn in the world. We can count them and it wouldn't take long. But there are more than enough writers, musicians, artists in general to fill up our useless space. It's not an easy endeavour.

A creative mind takes a big leap unto the unknown and never comes back. You can't escape your nature. You are defined the moment you stare back at the abyss.

I don't want to be the gatekeeper of art. These are the worst people.

Truth is that you don't know if you're meant to be an artist. But I've noticed that the ones who do end-up producing something that outlives them, don't tend to fall in the stereotypes.

People want to be artists, but most can't. So they become "artsy". The behave like an artist would behave in their mind. They adopt all the perceived quirks and eccentricity of a writer or a musician or a painter and they play pretend.

"Oh I am a sensitive soul and I am suffering". Ugggh.

Pretentious little cucks. You can spot them from miles away. They are usually in groups and they rot away in some hippy, bourgeoisie looking space.

Rich, middle-class people.

I don't want to be a writer or an artist. I hate it. I want to live like a normal person lives. I crave this. I want this burden in my heart to be lifted. I want to be able to experience emotions like a normal human being does.

Please, if one of you pretentious fucks wants to trade souls with me, talk to me. It's not fun.

But you want to pretend to suffer. You want to experience the romanticized existential dread of an artist. There's no upside to this though. It's all suffering, no reward.

And if you become an artist, you won't be one.

I am not an artist. I am creative. There's a BIG difference.

-Thatredbeardguy