I Write Better When My Life is Boring

Does this mean I’m destined for mediocrity?

When quarantine began around this time last year, all of my friends and family members were terrified and on the cusp of losing their sanity. Each day presented a new challenge that we hadn't faced before, and it felt like the world around us was caving in. Everyone close to me was terrified.

Call me crazy or in denial, but I wasn’t scared at all.

I wanted to be scared and anxious like the rest of the world, but I just couldn’t muster a worry. I was convinced that everything was going to be okay. In fact, during the early days of quarantine, I’ve never been less anxious.

In my anxious mind, the world always feels like it’s ending. When the world seemed to be ending for real, I wasn’t happy, but I finally felt validated. I’m not a nihilist or an anarchist (though I have a list of ex-girlfriends who might beg to differ), but I was incredibly relieved that for the first time in my life, everyone around me was just as anxious as me. That perceived unity alone took my anxiety from a level 10 down to a level 3, and my happiness and productivity tripled.

That was also when I first began writing.

Quotes like this bother me because they’re often used by writers as a way to glorify suffering and avoid improving their lives.

Am I really supposed to bleed every time I write? That seems extreme. Does the concept of a quote like this enforce more harm than good? If I don’t want to “bleed” every time I write, does that mean I “just don’t get it”?

Obviously, as a writer, you need experiences to write about. You need a semi-interesting life to write about. Doing interesting things helps you have stories to tell, but there’s still something about this…

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