Unfinished

Years ago, when I first was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, I nearly died and spent weeks on end in one hospital or another. I had no particular faith, and I didn't pray. While I was sick, a friend suggested I read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (and considering how dog-eared my copy is, I am delighted to find it's on Kindle).

To say this was a life-changing book is to be hopelessly cliche. But it definitely changed my life, and I have also never regretted passing the book along to friends, often purchasing paperback copies and keeping them until I have a friend I feel might really "need" this book and giving a copy as a gift.

Each sentence, just about, is one I wish I committed to memory. But my favorite quote, or one of them, is this:

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.


I spend a lot of time thinking about what life expects of me. And I think some of it is related to writing and being alone most of the time (even in chaos and children). I think. A lot. This week I had surgery on Tuesday, and I've been cooped up, mostly in bed, since then. Alone for most of the time since Pirate Boy was best kept away, lest he accidentally kick my sutures or something (he is very squirmy). I realized how being alone does not phase me. And part of that is that being a writer entails being alone in your head for hours and hours--for most of life. I think that's why the blog/FB community of writers is so solid. Maybe it's a way of not being alone in fits and starts and posts. We get each other.

So now I have a second Frankl quote.

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

And I wonder how many of us have thought of walking away from writing, only to find the "unfinished work" calls us back.

I have a pure-writing weekend ahead of me (pending, of course, naps . . . thanks to my recovery), but I am ever aware my unfinished works really DO call. I can never quite walk away from writing. I like to think that writing, for me, is about earning a living. But there's another element to it. It's just what I do.

Have you ever thought of quitting this crazy writing gig only to find the work calls you back?