1. Beats doing the dishes
2. Glutton for punishment
3. Me not talk good, still need express self
4. Megalomania
5. I don’t wanna grow up, ever
6. Everything else I do is fairly halfassed
7. Because nothing is better than when it’s good
8. Stupidly ambitious
9. For the sheer, transcendent joy of creation
10. Read too many books, started getting ideas
11. Because I am a sensitive shrinking violet and an opinionated, narcissistic jerk
12. Perfect excuse to always wear black
13. Cheaper than airline tickets, destination anywhere
14. Want to give to others what has been given to me
15. Painfully aware of mortality
16. Need hobby, suck at knitting
17. Secretly like angst
18. The voices in my head are counting on me

It’s like a virus. You read a book. It’s a great book. It moves you, challenges you, makes you laugh and cry, and after you’ve turned the last page and closed the back cover, you stare dumbly at your surroundings, because you see through them. You see through everything: you are awestruck, you are changed; you are a different person now. Hungry to feel that glorious sensation again, you read more books, and are changed over and over until you find yourself filled with the desire to reach out and change others as you have been changed. You want to throw off the shackles of space and time simply to touch a stranger. You want to communicate, to commune.

Art is magic, the one true magic, and when you pick up a pen, or a guitar, or a paintbrush, you begin your apprenticeship in sorcery.