Guh-wa?

So, yesterday I sent a somewhat bitter mess age to (but not necessarily at) Neil Gaimen via Twitter. I honestly didn't expect him to respond. He did.

So my post (they aren't tweets, goddamnit, I refuse to call them that) was as follows:

@neilhimself It must be easier (note: not easy) to write knowing someone somewhere will read it. Anonymity kills my drive.

His reply:

Each thing comes with it's own set of problems. Just write.

It's a fair point. I can't imagine the type of pressure he is under to consistently churn out quality material, given such a large reader base. And the advice is good for writers. The problem is: I'm not a writer. I'm not. I'm just a guy that occasionally has ideas.

Why do I feel these urges, to put down ideas in some form that resembles prose? I'll tell you why. It's the same screaming desire that causes some people have to children, or climb mountains or paint pictures. It's the desire to have some part of me remain immortal. For my name to carry on beyond myself into something tangible after my death. I'll never be athletic enough to accomplish some act of physicality that would be notable. I'm not good enough at my profession to be anything other than a footnote to science. The world of children is so unlikely as to be statistically impossible; in all likelihood I'll die alone. So I entertain these vain fantasies that somehow I'll put together a novel that will reach publication, and that some time after I am dead some person will go, "hey, have you heard of this book? It's not really well-known, but I like it."

But it's all such a damnable lie. I am not a special snowflake. I'm not, nor am I ever likely to be, a person of note. A person that makes a difference. I am just another one of the 115 billion human beings that has been born to this Earth, just another foot-soldier in the march towards entropy. Obviously I'm in good company. The vast majority of humanity joins me in simple anonymity.

So why bother? Why bother trying to write something? Even if I somehow scraped the words from under the sofa and behind the fridge and lumped them into a book, who would read it? The probability of publication is slim to none. The only eyes to see it would be those of my very close, and very tolerant, friends. So why bother? I have ideas, is there really any difference between letting them die in my head instead die in a file?

The urge to write comes, and thoughts like these kill it, and I don't know which is right? So I ask you: what's the bloody goddamn point?