Ed Note: “I Do This Because …” is a series of guest essays on this site by adventurers, entrepreneurs, and brave explorers of experience, uncharted territory, and life. As the title indicates, the essays offer the authors’ reflections on why they chose the path they did, and why they continue on that path, despite all the challenges, costs, and discouraging moments that come with any uncharted adventure.
For more information on the origins of the “I Do This Because” essays, see my own entry. And, as always, if you know of anyone you think would make a good guest essayist, or have your own answer to why you’re pursuing the particular, challenging path you’re pursuing, please share it!
About the Author
Jackson Bates is a graduate of Brown University (’83 ScB) and currently works in publishing. She has three grown children, a seven-year-old adopted son, and 4 grandchildren. In her free time, she copyedits manuscripts for new writers and independent publishers, and dabbles as a glass artist. She dreams of going back to school to study theoretical physics. And late at night … she writes. Her first novel, P.U.D.Z.S., was published at the end of 2010. She is now hard at work on her next novel, “Satanic Agents Hot on the Trail of Whiners and Cheeseburgers.” I introduced her to No Map. No Guide. No Limits. readers earlier this month.
I do this because …
Among the things I enjoy most about the day-to-day business of living, are the constant reminders that this universe of ours is a delightfully random and chaotic place. Women give birth on the side of the Interstate, and printer cartridges run out the night before final papers are due. And somewhere between the belly laughs and the tears, it becomes increasingly apparent that mankind’s attempts to impose order on all the madness are completely futile.
Work of the nine to five, power-suit wearing, soul-sucking variety is the most obvious example of our collective compulsiveness. It’s what we have to do to pay the rent, tuition for baseball camp and, of course, braces. We tell ourselves that following the rules make us responsible citizens and good mommies and daddies. It’s what we should do.
But on my own time, late at night when the kids are asleep and my half-fried brain is whispering that I should be as well, I write—silly, nonsensical romps that hopefully make people giggle and shoot milk out their noses—because it’s what I was meant to do. Writing is that thing that brings the wild pendulum swings of my thought processes back to plumb. Amid the never-ending conference calls and deadlines, I write.
I write—sometimes only a paragraph at a time—because I am still optimistic enough to believe that dreams don’t have to fade into so much clutter from the past. That even though they don’t get delivered to you doorstop and rarely come express shipping, it doesn’t mean they won’t come at all. It’s my way of dealing with the reality that chasing a dream actually means creeping slowly and steadily after it until you you’re finally close enough to pounce. I write to remind myself that laughter is always the weapon of choice when dealing with everything that life throws at you.
And I write because I can’t help but believing the tiny voice inside that suggests, “If you can work full time, and you can raise a family, and you can write novels, is there really anything you can’t do”? Maybe it’s self-confidence, maybe it’s just senility, but either way, that kind of thinking carries with it powerful mojo—the kind that kicks your butt out of bed with the force of a rocket launcher and propels you over the hurdles of the day. That alone is worth a little sleep deprivation.
I write for the same reasons that everyone pursues such non-essential endeavors—because we know in our hearts exactly how essential they really are. They keep us happy, they keep us sane, and they magically transform our ordinary lives into what we always hoped they would be.
More power to you ! !