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Hi fellow bums, I'm turning to you, more experienced travellers on the Way to ask for help. I don't know who else to seek for support in this subject, because few people I've met have embraced taoism, and their answers doesn't seem to help either. I had a dream: to become a writer and live writing. It all started when I discovered this passion, when I was 16 years old, but I only had the guts to follow it four years later, after spending that time working on jobs I hated and following a career that made me unhappy. When realizing how unhappy I was, I decided to leave everything and follow this dream, as unreal as it seemed to me, because I had few people giving me support to chase it. I dropped off university, and slowly started to change my career from graphic design to writing-related activities. As one step further towards what I wanted, I decided to join a course that made me write a lot, so I applied myself to one of the hardest vestibulars (a brazilian special exam for admission in universities in Brazil) in Journalism. It took me a lot of commitement and dedication, but I made it. I think it's worth mentioning that I never felt so happy than when I was writing. It was an experience that made me explode in excitement. I don't write for admiration, ego-boosting or fame. I write because what I feel when writing, I haven't found out anywhere. But then, I decided to take a better look at the spiritual subject. It started with Aikido, and then Meditation, and then I got into the cultivation practices I first saw here on The Tao Bums. After reading so much of Taoism and Buddism, I start getting in touch with concepts of "abandoning the self", "dedication to enlightement" and other stuff that seem to imply so much on "abandon" this dream. Thing is, all this stuff started to make me question my dream, and slowly, I stopped writing. It's not anything related on writer's block, but more over on "not doing it because it's an attachment." And to be truly honest, in comparison to writing, I don't feel as blissful when meditating. I must admit that I do not write "enlightened," beautiful stuff with "conscious" messages. In fact, I'm a big fan of writing detective noir stories, and writing humanistic dramas (Henry Miller, Phillip Roth and Bukowski, for example) filled with sexploitation, violence and other nasty content of urban settings. But the more I hear on abandoning it, and the more I decide to give my writing career up, I feel unhappiness. I don't want to abandon my dream, as I don't want to stop seeking enlightement the spirit. Am I not ready to follow enlightement because of this? I feel confused, and I'd like to see some other bums opinion. Namaste,