I write, therefore I am?
Sometimes people ask me if I've ever considered becoming a writer, and I'd like to respond that I already am, simply by virtue of the fact that, hey, I write. Evidently this is inadequate, and it seems that by the conventional definition of the term, I will have to be ensconced in a cardboard box, knee-deep in scrunched-up plots and discarded characters, flagrantly impoverished and marketing my soul and script to scores of publishers before I can fill in immigration forms with Occupation: Writer.
It's insufficient, for example, that my pockets are crammed to crumpled explosion with scribbles, that far too often during the day I'll become uncontrollably seized with the compulsion to write something down. It's insufficient that I'll happily deface my lecture notes and consign my inspiration to unfurnished margins, basking in glorious creative oblivion, at least until I realize that, damn, I've missed half the lecture. It's insufficient that I take almost carnal pleasure in kneading the world into diction, and that when I'm writing, I'll flirt shamelessly with verbs, adjectives, infinitives and subjunctives, and lose two hours in the wink of a preposition.
Sometimes I feel certain that if you slice me in half, my bloodied cross-section will resemble alphabet soup. Writing runs in my very veins, mark my words. But tragically: no, after all this, I still wouldn't conventionally qualify as a writer. So maybe the next time I'm on a plane out of the country, I'll change the form to read "Preoccupation" instead, and then I could put "writing", and not have to e.g. live in a cardboard box.
Well, convention be damned anyway. I write, therefore I am...a writer. QED.