On Writing Later in Life

Writing in youth is ambition. 

Writing later is reckoning. 

As Ernest Hemingway said: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” 

But bleeding at twenty is different than bleeding at sixty. 

Later, the blood carries memory. 

History. 

Regret. 

Loss. 

Forgiveness. 

You no longer write to impress. You write to understand.