So, I’m reading this wonderful book by Emily St John Mandel, and I come across this page. This page explains why I do what I do, why I write, why I take risks, why I have invested and will continue to invest everything I can in art. This is from pg. 165, and I just had to share it.
“But anyway, I look around sometimes and I think – this will maybe sound weird – it’s like the corporate world’s full of ghosts. And actually, let me revise that, my parents are in academia so I’ve had front row seats for that horror show, I know academia’s no different, so maybe a fairer way of putting this would be to say that adulthood’s full of ghosts.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure I quite –”
“I’m talking about these people who’ve ended up in one life instead of another and they are just so disappointed. Do you know what I mean? They’ve done what’s expected of them. They want to do something different but it’s impossible now, there’s a mortgage, kids, whatever, they’re trapped. Dan’s like that.”
“You don’t think he likes his job, then.”
“Correct,” she said, “but I don’t think he even realises it. You probably encounter people like him all the time. High-functioning sleepwalkers, essentially.”
I don’t ever want to sleepwalk through life. That’s what writing is for me – an effort to stay awake, to be present, to catalogue and explore and add to everything this world has to offer.
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