the cruelest paradox of all

There are hungers we don’t know how to name until a word finds us. Writing, for me, has always been one of them-- until I stumbled across the word scripturient: having a consuming passion to write.

I recognized myself in it immediately. I am the embodiment. Writing is such a violent desire, a passion that so easily burns me out, so easily alienates me. It’s a condition. A compulsion. A hunger that isn’t always beautiful.

I have always been a little possessed: by books, by flipping pages, by words. Naturally, that possession spread-- to notebooks, to unfinished thoughts, to the irrepressible itch to put pen to paper.

My mother says it’s because she read to me while in the womb (my brother, a musical genius, was played music). I was a child who devoured stories; finishing books in hours, whole series in a day. I lived above my reading level, forever chasing every reference I didn’t yet understand. I never thought a book was bad-- I understood each one. I understood why they ended the way they did, even when there was an obvious better ending. I understood why they chose cheesy over profound. Every character was real to me, and every character was myself. Saying I enjoyed it would be an understatement. Books were everything to me. I constantly sought comfort and safety in words, and it was always found. Words never let me down.

But at some point, it wasn't enough to read-- the words inside me grew too loud to ignore. I didn’t just want to live in stories anymore, I wanted to make them. The need to create became as strong as my need to consume. It became a violent hunger to not just absorb, but to express.

Turns out, it isn’t that easy.

I swore I was an author. A hopeless romantic, projecting wishful thinking into stories. I didn’t have any real experience with love, but I did read thousands of pages dedicated to the word. It wasn’t long before I started creating my own escapades in my head.

Alas, storytelling didn’t give me the satisfaction I craved. I filled notebooks with treacherous writing I never thought would see the light of day-- and in return, I was left with the consequences of idealized narratives: unrealistic expectations. Of course, I could’ve written about something less earnest, but longing was all I knew. I was growing up in a world already so fast and fleeting, and I clung to my stories like they could anchor me.

So, I pivoted. If stories couldn’t hold what I was feeling, maybe something shorter, sharper, more distilled could.

I swore I was a poet. On every late night, on every dim, moonlight-mimicking laptop screen, I truly was. I felt everything too deeply, I believed in everything a little too much. That could only mean I was meant to write poems. So I did. I turned every fiery, whirlwind thought into something I assumed required nothing. No skill, no talent, just some words bundled together. I was naive. But I was also a poet.

Then came the poetry-writing section in English class-- and with it, my poetry-writing career ended. I learned all the technicalities: formatting, rhyme schemes, syllable counts. We read everything from Shakespeare to Dickinson, and suddenly, I just couldn’t justify the silly poems I had spent so much time on. I needed to express myself, but now all these rules and regulations had trapped me. I was thirsty-- desperate-- and poetry only gave me tears.

Throughout the seven years between then and now, I indulged myself in letters. I wrote plays. Became a songwriter. Mythology phase. Worldbuilding obsession. Fairy tales, mysteries-- any genre of short stories I could sink my teeth into. If it involved writing, I tried it.

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

- Pablo Picasso

But I was mediocre. At everything. Especially at accepting this reality. I found inspiration everywhere I looked; I generated ideas faster than I can remember them. And still, the results felt insufficient. It made no sense-- the desperate need to write never failed to show itself through my physical restlessness, obsessive thinking, and sleeplessness. So, where did it go wrong? Why does everything I write feel like a rough draft of something better? How does a desire so consuming lead only to pages of amateurism?

Isn’t passion alone supposed to be enough?

The sobering, paradoxical, truth is this: the need to do can be so overwhelming, it drowns the ability to actually do it. The very thing we love begins to misunderstand us. Or worse-- we misunderstand ourselves.

Creativity, particularly when driven by said passion, often exists at the edge of obsession. Writers start to speak of the blank page not as an opportunity but as a threat-- an infinite space that reflects back every self-doubt. We don’t lack desire, but rather contend with too much of it. And when inspiration is constant but elusive, it creates a strange kind of suffering: one that blurs the line between purpose and burden.

I may never be a novelist. I may never be a poet. I may never be a playwright, a journalist, a songwriter. I will always have a consuming passion to write. I may never fulfill it.

But maybe it isn’t just about writing anymore-- maybe it’s praising it like a God, loving it like a Human, or fearing it like a Curse. Maybe it’s the absurdity of being unable to stop. Maybe it’s the loneliness or exhaustion that follows. Or the community and comfort that comes. Maybe it’s about the universal urge to create or express.

This is exactly what keeps me alive; to live in constant translation, to feel every moment ask for a second life in words. I am never empty-handed or empty-hearted. I am scripturient.

And I make peace with that.