writer, reader

It never hurts to start early but sometimes I also wonder why we bother to write at all. Writing only comes full circle when the reader picks up your book and reads what you have written. It is when you can engage in a dance of the imagination with your reader that writing starts to matter. Does this mean that all writers have readers in mind? How vain are we to presume that we will have readers? Most of us don't in fact and the publishing industry which seems more obsessed with $$$ does not necessarily guarantee that the most interesting books get to the hands of the readers.
Getting published and reaching readers is very hard. I cringe at the people who say they want to take "a summer off, to write a book" when I know that they are not compulsive writers, may not even keep up a diary and are poor readers. Writing is not seen as a skill that you need to work at. This is also why writing does not get paid and why most can't make a living out of it. And yet, there are some of us who still write against all odds before the kids wake up or late at night when the day is done and our day jobs are behind us...we write/paint because we must even if we, like Emily Dickinson and Vincent van Gogh, never reach our audience in our own lifetime. I hate to sound this glum on the Monday morning but I need perspective and when I write I still want to have the feeling that what I do is not frivolous, vain or in vain.