What writers do

I'm still getting used to introducing myself to strangers as a writer. But it always feels disingenuous for me to imply association with someone like, oh, say, Haruki Murakami. Who is this kind of writer:

I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. [...] I fully believe it is the novelist's job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories -- stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.

From his acceptance speech for the Jerusalem Prize, which is well worth reading in full.