As an eng/engl major will my writing always be softened and weakened by my being self-sufficient on earnings in my engineering world? Would my work be higher in scope and more well versed if my life was in the hard cruel world envisioned by Hemmingway? Would my thoughts be truer and my stories realer if hardship and struggling to eat ruled my time, living on my craft?

They say when a sense (i.e taste, touch, sight, hearing) is lost, the others come to ultrasensitivity.  If easy life was lost from no engineering, would my writing come to such ultra sensitivity to make up the slack?  Is writing then a sense?  If so do most/all/none have this sense?  Is having it true and pure or does it matter little?

Thus, what is best for writing?  The easy or the hard life?

AH--my eternal dilemna manifested yet again: Namely--Must I write?