Why Do I Write?
By Jonathan Bluestein

It is quite often that people ask me: Why do you write? There are a myriad of answers, not necessarily by an order of importance:

* Because I can.

* As means of making a living.

* Because I feel a compulsion to.

* To share and explain what I know.

* As I find enjoyment and fulfillment in it.

* For my children and the next generations.

Strangely, it is this final answer which seems to invite the most criticism or wonderment. "Why aim so far into the distant future? You do not even have children yet!". So many a time have I heard this sentence, or ones similar to it in tone.

Frankly, I am not troubled by the criticism. I am alarmed that so few in our time, believe that it is their duty to leave something of substance for the next generation, which is not of a financial nature.

We should remember the ancient Greek idiom: “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit". Had I land of my own, I would have planted trees, as I had done in the past. Devoid of possessions at the moment, I suffice to planting ideas within their remnants.