Me and George Orwell: An Alternative to Violence

The following is an excerpt from Why I Write by George Orwell:

I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life. Nevertheless the volume of serious--i.e. seriously intended--writing which I produced all through my childhood and boyhood would not amount to half a dozen pages.

In August 1989 a coworker at Akin Gump said to me: "We're all afraid of you. We're all afraid you're going to buy a gun, bring it in, and shoot everybody."

She should have said: "We're all afraid of you. We're all afraid you're going to buy a word processor, and spend the next 20 years writing about us and Akin Gump."

That's exactly what I did, by the way. I was fired from my job on October 29, 1991. Two weeks later, in mid-November 1991, I went to the department store Hecht's in downtown Washington, bought a Brother Word Processor, brought it home, and started to write about my experences at Akin Gump. I've spent the last 20 years writing about my experiences at the firm, and will probably spend the next twenty years writing about those experiences.  That's how I get my own back for my failure in everyday life.  I write.