Does your friend or loved one seem withdrawn?
Does s/he seem moody or easily depressed?
Does s/he avoid social activities?
Is s/he staring into space, seemingly detached from reality?
Does s/he suffer from chronic relationship issues or abuse drugs and alcohol?
Does s/he spend long periods of time in darkened rooms, lit only by a dim square of white screen?
Your loved one may very well be a Writer.
Although being a Writer is a life-long condition with no known cure, the condition is usually not fatal if it is managed well. Friends and family of the Writer should, however, be aware that it can be a gateway to more serious conditions such as: drug or alcohol abuse, debt, homelessness, and English teaching gigs.
There is no known treatment for being a Writer, but symptomatic relief can be achieved through simple regimen, the goal of which should be to confine the symptoms of Writing to a productive sphere. Ideally, the Writer should be provided with a simple space that is well-stocked with writing materials, tea, chocolate and soothing imagery or a good view.
The goal here is not to prevent the act of Writing entirely but, rather, to allow the Writer to do so in relative safety, whilst minimizing his or her exposure to people who could further destabilize his or her mercurial personality, i.e. party animals, procrastinators, loan sharks, fellow lunatics and bureaucrats.
When the Writer’s symptoms are not managed conservatively, a wide array of aberrant and antisocial behaviours may arise. These include, but are not limited to:
- Temper tantrums and/or inexplicably emotional outbursts
- Dancing all night long
- Arguments and rants
- Inappropriate singing and chanting
- Headstands and other untrained acrobatic stunts
- Fist fights
- Binge drinking
- Drag racing cars, flying planes drunk and losing control of other transportation vehicles
- Chain smoking
- Nomadic wandering
- Sleeping rough
- Overeating & fasting
- Praying to nonexistent gods
- Starting cults or joining fringe religions
- Compulsive lying
- Practicing homosexuality or behaving promiscuously
- Joining revolutionary radical groups
- Participating in wars, uprisings and coup d’etats (note: as with all of the behaviours described here, female Writers are equally susceptible to this condition)
-
Emma Goldman Adoption of a flamboyant or theatrical style of dress
- Nudity
- Suicide and murder, while rare, are occasional hazard for Writers who have not been diagnosed and/or treated in an appropriate manner.
The Writer’s biggest challenge lies in learning to manage his or her sensitive tendencies in a way that doesn’t accidentally inflict harmful truths and unwanted insights on people who are more comfortable not knowing about them. Failure to manage these tendencies in a socially appropriate manner has led to Writers being ostracized, institutionalized, jailed, exiled and executed at various times and places throughout history.
However, it may be premature to deem the Writer a poor choice of acquaintance on the strength of his or her diagnosis alone. If one can see a Writer through his or her near-endless funks, fits, fetishes and freak-outs, one will derive some unique benefits from knowing him or her. For instance, a Writer is quite good at drafting those important official emails and letters which most of us find too mind-numbingly tedious to deal with. S/he can almost always guess which word is stuck on the tip of another person’s tongue, and s/he can call up elusive terminologies or spell unusual words on demand. Bringing a Writer to a social occasion almost always improves one’s intellectual standing in the eyes of ones’ non-Writer friends. (Note: this effect is unlikely to be sustained if an open bar is present)
Finally, the Writer may occasionally produce something that his or her peers greatly enjoy reading although this is a less frequent occurrence than common sense might suggest.
The Artivist 
