Throughout my life, if you were to approach me at any time that I was putting pen to paper or fingertips to keyboard and asked why I was doing that, the vast majority of instances, including right now, I would have replied, “because someone told me to”. Well, I probably would not have used those exact words, but you get the gist. That someone was most often a teacher, sometimes an anonymous admissions official or employer I was trying to impress, but rarely myself.

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That’s not to say that I never enjoyed the writing that I was I told to do. The countless pages of literary analysis that I’ve delivered to a blank canvas have equipped me with an arsenal of knowledge and skills to inform the writing that is wholly motivated by me. However, given that just a slim slice of my writing pie chart could be labeled “non-compulsory” it sure makes it hard to answer the question “why do I write?” Not to mention, it’s a vague question – why do I write what? Should what I’m writing have an effect on the reason I am writing that particular thing?

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Maybe I can start with reasons why I do not write. How many times have I put something off to the last second? How many times have I stood face-to-face for hours with that stark white sheet, and how many of those sheets have suffered their demise, covered in scratched-out marks and crumpled into a ball soaring across my room into the trashcan? Without inspiration, the words fall flat, if they come at all. That seems obvious – I need inspiration to write – duh. Where that inspiration comes from though may be important. When I do begin to write, it is not because I want to say something, it is because I have something to say. It is because I believe that the words I have in my head are important enough to not allow to simply dwell in the isolated abyss of my mind or even dissipate into the atmosphere in the form of speech but to be solidified in ink.

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That sure is kind of egotistical; but maybe that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Even if the only person who ever cares about those visible words is myself, at least I am doing one person a service. Often times, when I write something that isn’t provoked by a grade, it is primarily for myself. My journal is cluttered with thoughts I’ve had during travel or during particularly difficult emotional times. Much like a daily to-do-list that organizes nebulous activities I must complete, writing has granted me the ability to sort out the thoughts swirling around in my head, place them directly in front of me and then allow myself to figure out what I want to do with them. In a way, it’s a form of self-empowerment.

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It would be very hard to argue that the main reason to write anything is not for it to be read. The two acts are so closely intertwined. There is no single thing that I have ever written that I have never read, even as just a side-effect of looking at what I am writing. Though, that would be a fascinating exercise – something involving blindfolds perhaps or a type-writer-like machine with keys that upon impact both create and shred, or a computer that automatically translates your words into a language that you cannot understand. So, what does it mean if the ultimate reason to write is to read? Maybe it means the impact of the creation of the writing will always be more important than the impact of the actual act of writing – even if the impact is just on myself as the sole reader.

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Because of that, I do think there is a difference between writing something to be read only by me and writing something that will be read by another person or many people. They are two separate acts that assert power through their different vulnerabilities. They are charged by different motivations and enforce different concerns on me when I write.

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It’s also interesting to think about that for something I perceive to be so personal, it cannot be accomplished without a tool outside of my body. It is impossible to write without some type of utensil, perhaps offering the precise separation I need between the thoughts within my self and the rest of world to make sense of them.  

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The act of writing is the journey of words and sounds from my mind, through my body and into the world through the tips of my fingers. The somatization of thoughts through physical movements that create lines, dots, and curves that transform those thoughts into words may be one of the most intimate purposeful connections between mind and body achievable. The most wonderful part of writing is when it seems like my fingertips take on a mind of their own. It is no longer my mind informing and creating the phrases on the page but the words themselves changing and affecting my mind, my thoughts, and effectively my view of the world; When something that I produced, something that supposedly began inside of me, stares back at me and changes me, thus fueling its own creation.