As with any fledgling writer, timidity arises, whenever you sit down to write.  What will they think?

I wonder, is it my job that makes me, well, sort of bitter, sort of reluctant to participate in the sorts of relationships that people seem to find normal?  Why do I find myself increasingly feigning enthusiasm at social requests, as if, like my job, I am only called upon to be a patient shrink, a good listener, and I've done enough of that all night already (and not got paid for it all that well.)  Am I finally finding that the aspects held as pleasurable don't last as such all that long?  Why would I crave reading and aloneness and the time to write as really quite sustaining?  Do I find myself trusting far fewer people, where I used to trust anyone?

Yes, it seems things go full circle.  The kid who once was very social now is... weird?  Likes his walks on his own?  What's up with that? you ask yourself.  Wasn't life supposed to be about finding the right person to be with?  Do you not trust anyone anymore with your time?  Do there really seem to be so few people who actually get it, (and they too, quiet types, not prone for the spotlight and the jolly meet-ups.)

Some people, I've come to realize, just like all that stuff, the social life.  But I'm not so sure I do.

Well, that's a literary asshole for you, not too long in the fun department.

But yet, if you make some gains toward diminishing the egotistical, maybe you begin to find that extraneous stuff just bounces off of you.  And to judge that as bad would be yet more ego talking.  I wouldn't say I don't feel sad about it all sometimes, but, it has its usefulness, particularly when what you do for a living isn't the same as the task by which you feel you really make a contribution to society and to humanity, though of course how would humanity ever repay you?  Send a check through the mail?  Humanity wouldn't blame you if, in the meanwhile, you did something to keep from hunger.

Yes, assignment:  write a book of some sort.  try not feel like a total asshole for doing so.