Ok, so here's the thing...

I want to be a writer. You might be thinking, big whoop. Everybody wants to be something in this world.

As Oscar Wilde put it: "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

But it begs the question...

Wouldn't you do it all anyway?

Wouldn't you live every second as if the lights are about to get so bright that they'll blind you, as if the sun will come crashing through your window and remind you—yes, YOU—that you never really saw anything, that you wasted your time watching but never really seeing, and now, being blind, you will never get the chance to see?

It's dramatic, I know. But it's also a practical way of looking at things.

So that's why I created this website.

I wanted to have a place to showcase everything that I'm seeing—thoughts, feelings, actions, stories, heartbreak, triumphs, losses, ups, downs, the sun, the moon, the sky, the days, the minutes, the hours, the seconds, the time gained, the time wasted.

Which reminds me, speaking of time wasted—I was sitting in an airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, waiting for a flight, which had been delayed for three hours, and growing hungrier by the minute. I have an intense fear of shitting myself on a flight (you know how it is, as soon as they turn on the seatbelt sign, your intestines and bladder team up to ensure that "holding it" is no longer an option), so I typically never eat airport food before getting on a plane. But seeing that I was going to be sitting at this airport for the next several hours, and it was already past dinner time, I decided that I had to suck it up and get a slice of pizza.

I got my slice and sat down at a barstool at the far corner of the seating area. The only reason I sat there was because there was an outlet beside the stool, and I wanted to charge my phone. A young guy was sitting there, he was probably in his early 30s, and had long, wavy blonde hair. It was tied up. I took a look at his face and he reminded me of a viking. Not so much because of his size or stature, but because of this intense look he had in his blue eyes.

He scooted down a stool, giving me access to the outlet, which was very kind, and then we got to talking. It turned out that the intensity I was seeing in his eyes was misplaced; he was a real stoner-type—chill guy—and a musician as well, a guitarist. He listened mainly to metal music (to be honest, I didn't know a single band that he was mentioning when I asked him what music he liked), but we got along just fine anyway. He explained that he just recently formed his own band and wanted to start releasing music, and then I explained how I wanted to be a writer, but I hadn't shared any of my writing with the world yet.

And then he said something that nobody had ever said to me in my entire life:

"You know, man, you're going to die some day, it could be soon, it could be a long time from now, but when you go, there's going to be people in your life, people who really love you, who are going to want to have things to remember you by. For example, I know that when I go, the people who love me are gonna wish they could hear me play my guitar one more time. So that's why I started posting videos of myself playing guitar on YouTube. So that they could hear me one more time—forever."

It blew me away.

All this time I thought that writing, or becoming a writer, was about me. Me, me, me. My stories. My thoughts. My ideas. For crying out loud, you're in the ABOUT ME section of my website.

I saw it as an act of egoism, a way of asserting my presence in the world, of leaving my mark, which is why I found it so difficult to share anything publicly. What if my "presence" goes unnoticed? Or worse, unwanted? Or hated?

But in a single conversation, this stoner-viking-musician-man flipped this concept on its head. Because it made me realize that I've already left a mark—for better or worse—as we all have.

And this is why writing, to me, is so important. Because it allows us to better grasp the "mark" we're leaving. It allows us to better understand the world as each and every one of us sees it.

We all owe ourselves that. The opportunity to see, before the lasting blindness sets in.

So who the f*** am I?!

Well, hopefully this website will give you some answers.

And hopefully, one day I'll find out: who the f*** are you?!

You can reach me by email here: me@mattmannino.com