Why I Write

One of my favourite past times would be writing, and I do it on a semi regular basis through blogging. Although most of the times I tend to just narrate about my own personal life with barely any insight, really just to share and keep track of the places and events I've visited and been to (these are posts which I don't really enjoy writing), I find a lot of joy in translating my thoughts into words. I love writing fiction as well and it's something I don't share, though I admit I find it more difficult to do so as I get older perhaps because my sense of childlike wonder and imagination is diminishing slowly. 

Sometimes, I do ask myself why I even bother writing. I mean, why do I even sit myself down and spend a couple of hours (occasionally) typing away when I can simply just think those thoughts? Why do I put in effort to craft something that's coherent from the weird jumble in my head when I can simply just tweet out any premise that pops into my mind? Okay, there are a few rare moments when I write due to the mere reason that I feel like there are actually people reading this space and I want to give them something to read when they happen to visit. However, that doesn't mean that I write for the sole purpose of attracting more people to read my blog, even though it's always nice to know that your writing is actually getting a certain amount of viewership. Even if I had zero blog views, I will still continue to write both online and perhaps on paper except that writing here truly immortalizes my thoughts, something which I appreciate a lot. So... why? Why do I even bother crafting this particular "essay" about why I write? 

For one, I believe that thoughts shouldn't be contained in oneself. Especially negative ones such as this particular one I wrote about. I remember feeling a lot better after pouring everything out and somehow, tweeting 140 letters about the situation does not work for me at all. Instead, it may even clog someone else's timeline and you end up making another person feel lousy. The act of hollowing out is sort of a triumph in itself because one is required to come to terms with the particular situation at hand and think clearly enough to put their thoughts and experiences into words, which to me is something insanely therapeutic. That's really the main reason why I write and why I love it so much. 

Another topic closely linked to writing would be inspiration. There are times when I feel like the things I write don't even stand out or that there are similar pieces of writing floating out there in the vast Internet - articles with the same line of thought. Perhaps I myself have gotten inspired by these things but why do I still bother writing such things then? To me, inspiration is sort of an external manifestation of your own internal state of mind. Even though I may have been inspired by something else, the idea and the words still comes from yourself and writing it out really does help you to understand certain concepts with more depth. You will inevitably add in your own thoughts and it'll become something of your own. 

I don't write well, but I enjoy writing a lot and it's one of the things that makes me very happy. These few days, during January Induction Programme, we were exposed to the subjects we were going to take and it's no surprise to me, but it really just hit me that I'll be writing an insane amount of essays this year, taking three humanities subjects that requires at least three essays for each paper in addition to General Paper. And I don't know, but it makes me a little nervous yet incredibly excited too. The mere thought of writing essays of differing and broad topics is amazing but yet I'm also afraid if there'll be too much restriction or essay conventions we'd have to follow. Or that my right hand gives up on me. I'm really happy though, that I chose subjects for the next two years that I will probably enjoy doing more than the others! :-) Let's just see how this goes.