Why Write?

Writing harnesses and cultivates ideas. It allows a transfer of perspectives. It allows vulnerability and provides insight. It marks a sign of the times, it shares beauty. It’s a form of communicating somewhat more permanent than verbal communication. 

To capture a thought, a feeling and recreate it in another. We use this to sell our ideas and our products. We use this to share our dreams. This self expression gives an intimate view of the human condition. In a sentence or two, we explore philosophy, psychology, our hopes and fears - instigated by both the writer and the reader.

A form of alliance is formed by the writer and reader, the creator and the audience. This unspecified teamwork is a dance of consideration. Which one individual could claim correctly to understand a single thing, let alone everything or anything at all? There is what was meant by the writer, and there is what is understood by the reader. These things can be completely separate. What is it to be correct? While history is written by the victors, it could be seen as preferable to say the wrong thing in the right way.

I consider the fundamentals of how information is transferred. I consider the nature and the value of this idea of being correct. It’s possible for two people to think they are on the same page, and in reality be chapters apart. This shared sense of reality is such a significant element of what it means to be the social creature we describe as human. I take this shared sense of reality as my focus. Is it the fundamental goal to convey what you wish to convey? There are artists who are at peace with how vague their work is. They take joy in the varied understandings that are formed, perhaps stating that there is no correct or intended meaning, just a fickle feeling that follows consumption of the words.

Another consideration of mine is, who has the best ideas? A subjective question of course, but the answer I’ve arrived at is with a note of melancholy. I’ve drawn a conclusion that some of the most impressive minds lack the gift of communication. To picture a savant with answers one might struggle to comprehend, just unable to tell the world.

Not quite as a duty, but as an embrace of gratitude for what we have, I find it worth utilising the skills of communicating, in the formal form of writing, to reach out further to those who may struggle to communicate as such.

Have you ever found your own words from someone else? What a visceral and humanising feeling. How unifying, how beautiful it is, to find some connection in often unsuspecting areas. 

I then find it a nice idea, both to express my own words, and offer them to others to adopt if they wish. To adopt or possibly to consider and decide it is not to be adopted. In a sense, this is equally valuable as a skill, to determine which ideas are to be acquired, and which are to be left behind. And through this determination, with an idea you really wish to sell, you can do so, knowing you’ve created that dream in the mind of the reader.