Another Reason For Writers to Write

Immortality may feel like vanity but who know of Socrates but for Plato, Julius Caesar but for Julius Caesar, Hamlet but for Shakespeare?

Or as Yuri Andrukhovych days in  “Writers Are the Middlemen Between the Human Race and Immortality”: A Conversation with Yuri Andrukhovych Kate Tsurkan interview:

In Radio Night, the main character believes himself to be immortal. Should writers think the same way?

Yes, they should. Not only for themselves: Writers are the middlemen between the human race and immortality. We deal with language in the most intensive way, but in any other situation, we are just liars. To do what we do, you must believe in language, and a part of me still believes that it has the capacity to perform miracles. This is of course the big dilemma of our time: we are standing idle in the face of language shrinking. People use less and less words; they don’t feel the need to speak on an elevated level.

I told my father before he died I was writing eulogies. So being a middleman does not bother me, it actually gives me an impetus to keep going. How about you?

sch 7/30/22