Would You Stop Writing for a Million Dollars?
Would You Stop Writing for a Million Dollars?
I was pondering what purpose art fulfills in my life recently when this question occurred to me. I realized that not only do I not want to stop creating art (including writing) but that I do not think I can. For me, the answer to the question, "Would you stop writing for a million dollars?" is an honest though somewhat chagrined, "no." It's not because I wouldn't want to but that I don't think I could.
I'm not arrogant enough to think that even the value of the combined total of everything I write in my entire life will ever add up to a million dollars. I'm not arrogant enough to think I can do more good in this world with mere words than I could if I were to have a million dollars to do it with.
If someone actually made me such an offer, I might want to accept it, very badly. After all, I'm pretty poor. However, I don't think I could stop writing. I don't think all that many people who think they could, actually could.
It's pretty clear-cut for me because I'm autistic and I communicate much, much more with the written word rather than the spoken word. It would basically be like taking a lifetime vow of silence would be for almost anyone else. I think it would be a tremendous pressure even on those writers for whom an end to writing would not be so closely akin to a lifetime vow of silence.
So Here's the Set-Up and the Great Big Catches - Please Read Before Answering
A dodgy source of money plus the permanent loss of your writing voice...
Here's the setting for my hypothetical question:
You are not poor, you have medical insurance, a roof over your head, food on the table, and a nest egg socked away for retirement and you work in a job you enjoy that does not involve writing. An organization morally, ethically, or politically opposed to something you write about (if you write about cats, it might be the Cat Haters of Earth Society, for example) offers you a million dollars to never write another word and to allow them to erase from existence everything you've ever written.
You would not be allowed to dictate your words to another person or into a recording device nor use a text-to-speech program to turn your speech into writing.
You would be allowed to write your signature on legal documents and nothing more. So much as signing a birthday card would break the deal. Would you take the money? Could you really, truly never write another word so long as you lived?
What Does Writing Mean To You, Emotionally Speaking?
What emotional role does writing fulfill in your life?
How about you? Would you stop writing for a million dollars? - If you think you would, do you think you could, never, ever write another word?
Would You Stop Writing for a Million Dollars, Assuming All The Conditions Stated?
I'm not even sure I could stop writing if I were fined every time I wrote something. Good thing that won't happen!
How Much Would It Take?
I honestly couldn't tell you how much it would take for me to be rendered permanently mute in this way. I assume there would be some amount of money that would force me through guilt to accept the offer, but a million isn't it. How much of a payoff would it take for me to give up my voice-box? I just don't know.
Anyway, let it percolate through your mind. How much would would someone have to pay for you to give up your written voice forever?
It's Only Hypothetical
Before anyone else chastises me for being poor and not accepting a million dollars to stop writing, please remember this is a purely hypothetical question; no one is offering me money to stop writing.
And yes, if you must know, some very literal soul felt the need to tell me I have no right to refuse this money that doesn't actually exist.
© 2012 Kylyssa Shay