Note from the editor: This week, the article you are reading was originally written a few months ago. When Dana didn’t email his article to me this week, I sent Guido to his apartment to get it out of him (can’t have the help missing deadlines and all). My assistant found the apartment completely destroyed, the walls completely covered in random movie quotes. Luckily, hidden in a box of Japanese pornography, was a stack of articles written just for the website. Always knew Dana wouldn’t flake on me.

Sitting out by the pool this weekend, ok, ok, I couldn’t write that without laughing. I was sleeping on the couch this weekend when I had the weirdest dream. Montel Williams was telling me how the large Asian man sitting next to me was the father of my baby and that he had the results of a paternity test to prove it. I was a little confused to say the least. I kept trying to figure out when I had slept with the large Asian man next to me, or when I had even been pregnant. It didn’t really seem to strike anyone as strange, myself included, that I was a guy. Suddenly, a strange urge to buy Windex came over me that I just wrote off to the post partum depression and I was back to Montel. He kept asking me to bid on the next item. Then I woke up. Sleepy, and without child, I wiped the crusties from my eyes, made a sandwich, feeling all the better for living in the really real world. That brings me to this week’s article.

The reality of living life in the really real world:

Why do I sit at my computer and write funny little stories that give me the giggle fits? To hopefully give my millions of adoring fans the same feeling for a few minutes? Partly. To one day have millions of fans that I can hopefully give that feeling to one day? That would be cool. So one day someone stupid enough to give me money will pay me truckloads of it to do what I want to do anyway? That would be a pretty good reason too. How about the fame, fortune and adulation of 21 year old hotties all over the world? Well, I didn’t even have to finish the question before we all knew the answer to that one. These are all great reasons, but the true answer came from a conversation I had with my cousin while we were sitting around smoking cigarettes and reading poetry (yep, still straight, in case the above mentioned hotties were wondering). The answer is simpler and more direct than any I had ever really thought of. Mental masturbation.

I know I could have said something a little more tactful like self gratification, but I don’t think it would have fully conveyed my point. Sitting at my computer, putting all of my effort and focus into doing something that will give a sense of complete satisfaction and release that only I am going to get from it. Afterwards, I am mentally relaxed and have a wonderful sense of completion.

I do it to help me relax, to fall asleep easier at night. Without a chance to unravel that little knot in my brain that has been getting tighter and tighter throughout the day, my mind wanders, and I can’t sleep when my mind wanders. Getting it all out on this little computer allows me to feel a little better about myself. A sense of accomplishment, that I did something and that it doesn’t really matter if I may be the only one that will really enjoy it.

Now, don’t get me wrong. That may be the main reason why I like to write, but I still one day hope that someone will read these little ramblings and will allow me to make a living doing it, because God knows I don’t want to be pushing paper around in my little cubicle for the next 30 years. But, that is just the practical reason I do it, because writing in itself has no practical purpose in the really real world. It doesn’t pay my bills (yet), clean my apartment, or really anything of the sort.

Generalities, Generalities, Generalities…
I guess the real reason people write, draw, play a musical instrument, do anything artistic (until a practical purpose comes around), is to relieve something in themselves and to give themselves a sense of purpose or accomplishment. And that, in my opinion, has to be the only reason at first. Then, with that passion comes the hope that the thing that makes you feel so good, can be spread to other people, if only for a few moments at a time. Then, you can look for the practicality in whatever you do.

To help me fulfill the second part of my dream, drop me a line at DPlace76@yahoo.com. Or for some random thoughts about my life catch my live journal at www.livejournal.com/users/bigdpimpin.