How Writing Kept me Going, and Keeps me Going
- Parth Shah
- May 1, 2024
- 4 min read
I hated high school. I mean, I hated it. People say that high school was the best years of their lives. For me, it was the worst.
Writing was the only way I got through high school. In my senior year of high school, I had 3 free periods. Each free period I would go to the library and write. I was working on a novel about some weird formula some dude made that turned him into this invisible blob. It was an odd story and I just confused myself as I was writing it. I feel sorry for the math teacher who had to read my story. He was a nice guy. He didn’t teach me any math, but he did help me with my writing.
I’ve always found it difficult to participate in what most would consider normal life: going to school, going to college, going to work. All of it is very difficult for me. I find no joy in it. What I do find joy in is family. I enjoy spending time with my wife and daughter. But because we have so many concerns in life, sometimes we are not able to enjoy the moment even when we technically have a moment of freedom. For example, during dinner when your daughter is playing and you’re eating dinner. Why do you need to constantly tell her to sit down and eat her food and stop being wild and crazy? Let her be wild and crazy. Turn off the TV and watch her. Participate with her. Chase her. This is what you wanted, right? This is the moment you live for. You work hard to provide a roof over your head and food on the table, and so when you get there, when you achieve this moment, you refuse to acknowledge it and enjoy it.
This is what you wanted, right? This is the moment you live for.
Life is like streams of misery with pockets of happiness. You must learn to survive the misery and enjoy these pockets of happiness when they appear before you. That is the most difficult skill, and I have not yet conquered it. I have trouble looking past my troubles. I have trouble acknowledging and being happy with the blessings of God.
This is what high school was like for me. Every day I struggled with interacting with people, understanding why what the teachers were teaching us was relevant in my life, and why I had to spend 7-8 hours per day in a building with people I didn’t care about and some I didn’t even like very much. Things that they cared about, I didn’t care about. I didn’t connect with anyone, nor did I want to connect with them.
And so writing was my connection to some fantasy world I created in my head. Sometimes it made sense, sometimes it didn’t. But just because I put words on a screen, they somehow became real. The words were alive, but not really because they were still just words on a screen.
When these words on a screen are all cobbled together into a cohesive story, then that translates into an image in someone else's mind. There is your connection. For the writer, that is the world and how we participate in it. The ability to ignite an image, or a story in someone else’s mind is what keeps us going.
The way the world works makes us all greedy. We are all in this rat race: bills, taxes, food, shelter, water - just the ability to survive costs so much. The things that make us happy: family - that alone is a formidable challenge. If you have a family, you have achieved more in your life than most people. It’s odd. It seems like such a low bar for the human race. We have all lost any expectations of greatness, and we’re all just now surviving for a single breath. It’s like that one phrase from the movie Titanic I keep recalling in my head: “Will you give us a chance to live, you limey bastard?
The ability to ignite an image, or a story in someone else’s mind is what keeps us going.
I still have hope. One day I will be sitting in a study in my home. The air is quiet, the world is running, but I am not part of it. I’m just sitting and writing. Not a care in the world. My family is happy. We have money in the bank. Everything is taken care of, and I’m just writing.
I’ve thought about it many times: write your novel and make a lot of money. I’m not sure why I can’t get to that place. For some reason, I want to write the novel after I’m free. I haven’t quite worked it out in my mind why that’s the case. Perhaps the world has made me greedy. Maybe the world has made me disillusioned. But all I know is that when I stop writing, I feel like I’m dead. When I start writing, I feel like I’m alive. For just a few moments in the day, I feel like I’m doing something worth doing.
Of course, what I do for my family brings me immense joy. But that joy is unseen. You have to learn to see it. It’s not always apparent. It’s not always clear that you’ve made progress. You have to look back. You have to write it down, put it on a chart, and then say “Wow.” But then you don’t feel any better because you still have to participate in the world.
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