There’s about a thousand reasons why I might never write something that matters, something I can give as a gift to the world that the world will actually read. Let me tell you one of those reasons:

I care too much about myself. I’m an immature, self-centered kid.

At this point, a couple questions might arise. For instance, you might ask “Weren’t those two reasons and not one?” In response to that, I would tell you to shut up. The more important question, though, is “What do self-centeredness and immaturity have to do with writing something worthwhile?”

Well, I’m a living testament to the notion that the first obstacles to putting something good on paper are 1) stepping outside of yourself, 2) realizing that your own mind isn’t all that interesting, and 3) looking to other things and other people to find your inspiration.

(Keep in mind that I’m operating on the assumption that good writing is good because it reaches out to others and blesses them or challenges them or deepens them, while bad writing is bad because it praises the author’s own personal genius or stays so personal/introspective/narrow-minded that it could never matter to anyone else. Not that all good writing is good because of this one trait, or that bad writing is bad because of this second trait, but they’re definitely factors.)

I’m starting to go in a couple different directions here, so let me slow down and give you a concrete example of my problem. All my life (all my writing life), the sum total of what I’ve produced is a load of self-rumination—some mostly worthless prose poems about my feelings, some digressive entries about who I think I am, etc. I’m not saying that these things aren’t important to me. Introspection certainly has its place; that’s what so many people keep diaries and journals for. But who else in the world would ever want to read this stuff? Who else would it benefit?

Instead, I’ve found that my most worthwhile words have been written in moments when I’m not thinking about myself, when I’m mature enough to turn my eyes for one split second from my own worries and think about someone else’s feelings. One of the poems that I’m most proud of writing is about a girl I went to high school with. It’s only a couple verses, and it’s mostly prose, but I feel like I got to the heart of her—and in the process, created something that others could potentially relate to, with or without knowing this girl.

What I’m saying is this: I don’t want to write what I know. That’s perhaps the most overused piece of writing advice I can think of — “write what you know.” Why would I ever want to do that? I barely know anything! And what I do know is boring. Rather, I want to write what I see. I want to write with others in mind. I want to stop sitting idly on subways and trains and planes and in class and the dining hall and the gym, and instead start watching people and learning people. Maybe then I’ll start to get a grasp of some truth.

To put it another way, I want to reject my inherent solipsism, stop pretending that the world revolves around my big head, and grow up. Maybe then, I’ll be able bless others with my words.

Note: I drew from the words/writings/tweets of John Green, Junot Diaz, Teju Cole, and maybe Dave Eggers as I wrote this, so all credit to them where credit is due.