Why write?

Its instructive and kind of a fun exercise to ask simple questions. Simple things seem to have simple answers, yet those simple answers turn out be tautologies, circular references or definitions. Take for example, Where does the sun rise? And pat comes the reply ‘It rises in the east’. Now we know what is East, its where the sun rises!!But what really is East? And what does rising even mean? And when we actually get down to these questions, there starts a never ending chain of questions and answers, which carried long enough, will cover and refresh everything that we know, and break some grounds along the way.

So now I ask the question, what is writing? What does writing accomplish? And one may say ‘Its just about expressing your thoughts on paper’. Fair enough. That looks pretty clear and we may leave it at that. But why express your thoughts? For whom? Hey, expressing your thoughts is just cool. And if you express them well enough, others may like them. They may think highly of you, you may even get to have writing as a profession, with people paying to read what you write; at least just being eager to read without paying. So is that writing all about? Is it a job like anything else? No. No. Its much more than that. Its about entertaining and delighting people with your ideas.

That sounds cool. Its always satisfying that someone is delighted by you or what you do. But why write then? Maybe you could just tell your ideas. Isn’t the spoken word, more full of richness and information, and also conveys your emotion and style. But what about people whom you don’t meet directly? Well you could just create an audio or a video. That would be more engaging than writing. Why write when other mediums seem so much better. I don’t know man, writing feels more satisfying. I mean, you don’t have the burden of continuously speaking or appearing photogenic or emphasizing your speech for effect. You get your own time to think through, to just think of something completely and then express it on paper. Let the reader find his own visualizations, his own detail. You just provide the skeleton, the concept, pure and simple.

That was beautiful. So you write to be a thought leader, someone who thinks different and provides insights to others, guides them. But you know, I have read many books, of all kinds, and frankly I find these insightful books to be empty preaching; I already know what they are saying, and anyways if life was that simple as to be guided by prepackaged insights, no one would have any problems whatsoever. Hey, you know what, you are right, no one likes this ‘insight’ stuff. People read it mostly when they are forced to for professional or business reasons. I write for myself. Theres a raw, instinctive feel to it, thinking of something and painstakingly putting it on paper.

Wow. So you are like into self-introspection. By writing, you discover something that you didn’t know about yourself. Yeah, that’s right, it really helps you know. OK, but why not just think it out. Why go through all the trouble of writing. You are not going to forget whatever you thought anyways. Yeah, but..you know what, I have had enough with you probing me with these crazy questions. I don’t know why I write. Maybe just for fun. Maybe I feel like it. Why don’t you tell me what its about, smartass?

Well, you know, I was just trying to ask simple questions. But that last part, about it being fun, about like just feeling to write, that connected with me too. I mean, why do we play games, for fun right? Or go to restaurants sometimes when we can have home-cooked food? Eating out is just fun. I don’t see why writing has to have that burden of impressing others, of being a tool for self-introspection, about being a medium to appear insightful to others. That takes away all the joy from it and makes it a chore. To write as it comes to you, I think that’s the best way to write. Something may turn out coherent, something chaotic, something purposeful, something directionless, but if there is something inside me that I want to know more about, whatever I write, I will be more than satisfied with it. And you know how there’s a need to rip apart devices to see the components and the connections inside, or the need to build something that you have in mind, well writing is a lot like that. You have an idea, a story, a vision, epiphany, whatever, and you just want to create it and see how it looks and feels. The need to just write what’s going in your mind, read it and revel in it.

That’s why I write.