As a human being, I have often wondered to myself, while staring at a wall of drying paint, why people write? Of course, I’m not beyond the principle that we, as a mass, mesh, and even microcosm of our own universe often write to convey a particular message and to communicate. I get that. What I have a hard time grasping is why people write certain things out of passion.

For instance, I once stumbled across a play, on the internet, that someone wrote about red, white, and blue-colored aliens from another dimension flying to earth in a spaceship made of cardboard with the sole prospect for them being the eradication of the complete Arabic population. One can only assume that such a brazen and irrational premise could only have been thought up by a gun-toting hillbilly who just happens to have a penchant for watching too-much Dr. Who while chugging copious amounts of Miller Light in their parent’s basement. One might just be right.

As I sat at my computer, wondering what would drive someone to write this kind of arbitrary science-fiction/political propaganda, I began to realize that it could only be one thing. One very simple, right-in-front-of-your-face kind-of thing: The Internet.

The internet is to our generation what the black hood was to the formal executioners of the 1700s. It is anonymity. It is freedom. Anonymity gives us, as citizens of a planet, the right to get away with anything and everything. If a man, heterosexual or other, could legally and socially get away Scot-free with sexing a medium-sized domesticated animal with nothing more than a pair of saftey sissors and a pair of iced tongs he would. Say no all you want, America; you know in your hearts I’m right. The fact that anyone can have access to the internet and create a digital life very much akin to their exclusive likings and tastes, then go forth and spew any sort of philosophy they want is amazing yet frightening. It’s frightening because of power.

There is great power in being anonymous. The trick, you see, is being anonymous and credible. If you can master both, then you, my mysterious friend, can have the world by it’s proverbial balls. When I say “credible” I’m not even talking about matters of being truthful; I’m talking about will people want to come back to your web page because they admire the cut of your jib and will hang on to your every word until you can cajole them into your arms and have them at your every digital whim? A lofty goal, for sure. But if you can make it happen you will be able to lay claim to being the first person to do so. Although I suppose if you actually attempted to lay such a claim no one would believe you. Kind-of has to do with that whole “being anonymous” thing.

So, where exactly am I going with this? Well, my little epidermis-wearing humanoids, the answer lies in infinite regression. Try as you might to wrap your head around the last five paragraphs and your mind will surely revert back to the principle question and try having a go at said question again. It’s just like trying to ask if there’s a God. You’ll come up with a reasonably well-thought out and convoluted answer, then you will slowly realize that your answer doesn’t make any sense, you’ll tussle around with other options, then you’ll just say “fuck it” and take the side of believing in God because you’ve got nothing else, then you will drop your hand back into your bag of Funyons and go back to watching Family Guy because you also have low standards and a brain that mistakes pop-culture references for comedy.

The “fuck it” moment in this equation is that writing is something that exists and we do it because we can and it’s legal—for the most part (see fire-in-movie-theatre-exception).