When people ask you how you do something that for you seems so normal and for them so not, how do you explain?

I’m not writing for you, for me or for anyone. I’m writing because I write.

Runners just want to put on the shoes. True readers want you to stop talking so they can get back to their books. Writers just don’t want to write.

Well, I should rephrase: writers may not want to write, but it’s a bit like a drug addiction, they can’t not do it. They might not always like it, but they’re always going to do it.

If you ask people why they do what they’re passionate about, they might fumble for an answer. Because they don’t need a reason to do what they do, they just do what they do because they only know how to do what they do and they don’t feel the need to explain, justify or convince.

They might wonder why you don’t do what they do because they only understand doing what they do and they don’t understand anyone who doesn’t do what they do–or rather, someone who doesn’t do what they’re passionate about doing, someone who doesn’t do what they feel called to do, someone who doesn’t do what they cannot not do.

When you travel, you, well, sometimes if you’re lucky (or smart or both), you lose yourself in where you are. You have little idea of where you came from or what it was you were doing there. (P.S. If you haven’t experienced this, you haven’t been away quite long enough just yet.) When everything that you know is shed from your surroundings, you’re left with only what you know, what you’ve experienced and who you are. You have nothing but what you’ve loved and what you love and what you think you will love in the future.

In other words, you either have a smile on your face or a scowl or a look of despair. Which is it for you?