Those of you who have read this blog in the past but don’t know by now must realize something. It’s pretty fucking dead. There’s a pretty good reason for that. I’ve pretty much gone ahead and quit writing. That’s right. I don’t really write much anymore. It just isn’t really for me.
In truth, that’s not quite accurate. I do a lot of freelance writing, and write a lot of content. But that’s just words. It’s not really writing. Even blogging isn’t writing, not really. I’ve been working on my book, of course. But that’s some rewriting, and a lot of producing and waiting on all of the art pieces to fall into place. But it isn’t really writing.
Quitting writing, then, has just kind of been a natural choice for me. I have a job, I make plenty of money, I live in New York with my wife. I haven’t really written about any of this on the blog, because in reality, things are going quite well for me. I feel like I was largely drawn to writing in the first place because things were decidedly not going well. I felt like I couldn’t communicate; that this is the way I would lend my provocative point of view to the world, to feel like I mattered.
But provocation isn’t interesting anymore. Everyone’s doing it, from the government, to tech companies, to society at large; the whole world has been disrupted. Hell, the creators of Silicon Valley just ended the show because of how big tech have become the bad guys. It just isn’t funny anymore. As such, being that self-important voice just isn’t important to me anymore either. And really, it just doesn’t define who I am or the life I live in the way that it used to.
I do have a piece coming out next week, and of course, never say never, but I’m kind of turned off from writing nowadays. Even though I defined my blog, my social media, and my whole life by it previously, it just isn’t who I am anymore. I’m creative, I’m strategic, I’m good at structuring things, but most of all, I’m Daniel Horowitz. I’m not just a guy who can sling some sentences together and call it a day and be miserable thereafter.
I’m a husband, a brother, a son, and a great friend, and most importantly, I have a great life. There’s a lot more to me than just my writing. I’ve had successes and failures as a writer, but quitting writing has taught me that those failures weren’t really failures. They were just roads that I was made to travel to end up where I am now.
Of course, it’s not like I’m never going to write again. I’m just not going to put the expectation on myself to do so. I didn’t even make it to 100 posts, after all. But I think putting the expectation on myself to write has kind of ruined it for me. Like breaking into any creative art, the burden of industry is too strong when you got into that it ruins your enjoyment of it.
But still, I think quitting writing is right for me right now. It’s not giving up if you realized it may not be what you wanted in the first place, or at least what makes your life worth living now. I’ll still write — but not to give myself meaning.
I’ll do it only if I want to.
