David Sedaris

First off, the guy on the sidewalk outside the liquor store was a drunk, not an oracle.

Second, I had just helped a stranger carry a cabinet down York Avenue for what felt to me and probably to her as well like an eternity.

And a person gets points for things like that.

When authors say that writing is cathartic, does that make any sense to you?

Yeah, it makes sense, but I've never felt it to be cathartic.

It helps me make sense of the world.

You know, I mean... And it helps me see myself.

Like, when I was young...

Well, no, it's never really my problem.

I never really wrote about my feelings in my diary.

Like, that's really embarrassing if you look through an old diary and it's all about your feelings.

If it's about a conversation you had at the barber shop, that's not embarrassing, right?

I could put out a whole book of haircuts.

Just haircuts I've had over the years and conversations with different barbers.

Every one of them is recounted in my diary.

I don't recall ever getting a haircut and not writing about it afterwards.

If writing isn't cathartic for you, if it doesn't exactly fix anything, even when you're writing about your own history or your friends and family.

What is it that draws you back day after day, morning after morning?

After you finish your Apple Watch jog and your Duolingo session and you go back to the page, why over and over do you keep doing it?

I want to be better.