A Quick Consideration of Arrogance

I receive a healthy handful of private messages on Instagram and Twitter: mostly hellos, high-fives and how-do-yous. Every once in a while, I'll receive a thought provocation causing me to set down my phone to explore it with whoever is in earshot and willing to converse. I recently received such a question, and while typing out my response, I (through the very nature of the response) realized it was blog-worthy.


Question

Hi M,
...
Do you ever feel like writing creatively is incredibly arrogant, and pointless when there's so much in the real world that's so powerful? I've been thinking about it a lot, and it's really an awkward thing trying to write fiction, because for me personally I have to take bold, calculated risks in the real world to get outside my own head.

Anyway, just wanted to say hi, and thanks!
Best,
Will

Response
Hi Will,

Thanks for writing!

I thought about your notion - how writing creatively can be perceived as arrogant and pointless considering the density of real world experiences and our need of the real world in order to write creatively in the first place.

I find that creative writing, especially in the realm of science fiction, is incredibly un-pointless and has arguably been a hefty contributor to social evolution and scientific innovation. There are countless examples of real world technological advancements born from novels and creative arts: rockets, cellphones, helicopters, submarines, 2nd Life, right down to the very word Robot coined by a playwright in the 1920s.

Is creative writing arrogant? Yes. I'd say producing (a.k.a creating) anything is arrogant. Finding oneself worthy enough to contribute to society by taking their insides and pouring it forth in any fashion is arrogant: down to the hard truth that bearing children, though etched into our DNA and (again arguably) our purpose for existence, is arrogant. "Who are you to continue your line of genes?" a critic might ask acerbically. "What makes your traits so special?"

However; to lock oneself in a cave, attempting to avoid arrogance yet keeping all of one's creative potential to oneself, is also a selfish act. Moreover, to choose to deny oneself pleasures and external stimuli rings of self-absorption. The act of choosing on behalf of the self is, in and of itself, self...ish; and to choose not to choose is also a choice.

So if to do is arrogant, and to not do is arrogant, and if to resign oneself to suicide so as to avoid the dilemma is also arrogant, the real question is...what isn't arrogant?

Keep writing! :)
Best,
M

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