Why People Don't Write?

Why people don't write has always interested me -- not least because I often don't write myself. Could it be as simple as Simone Weil's notion that "To be free and sovereign as a thinking being for an hour or two a day, and a slave the rest of the time, is such a torment to the soul that, to avoid the pain, most people will renounce the higher forms of thought."

Of course most people aren't interested in much more than the next very satisfying but bad cheeseburger movie anyway.

But we have all known people ... indeed, we have all known some very talented people ... who either judged (perhaps correctly) that they lacked enough of the talent they would need, or lacked the courage and drive that would enable them to make something of the talent they actually had.

But I always think it is a pity they just didn't try.

On the other hand, I probably would have made more money by sitting still holding my breath than I have ever made by writing.