I have been thinking a lot lately about the value of writing. Why should I bother to write, as I have always sucked at keeping a journal. Don’t get me wrong, I have started many journals in my life, but all too quickly they become paper weights on a shelf, covered in dust. Even my electronic journals, of which this blog is one, are sporadic at best. I write in spurts, fits and starts, and then go months, even years with nothing but a quiet keyboard.
So why bother writing at all?
I have had a few encounters this week, running into people that I rarely see, who have commented that they read my blog. Moreover, they not only read it, but enjoy it, and value the vulnerability expressed within what I write. And while I appreciate the encouragement, and am earnestly grateful that some people find value in the words that emanate from my finger tips, I am still left with the question of why I bother to write at all?
I am not writing with the hopes of being the next self-help guru. I am not writing with the intent to get rich or famous, hell if I wanted that, I would at least be publishing these posts on a platform like Medium where there would be a sliver of a chance that someone might “like” my faltering prose.
Truthfully, I don’t know why I write at all. At times, my writing has been an outlet, a compunction to process jumbled thoughts and ideas rumbling in my head. At times, I think my writing has been a backhanded method of calling out things that piss me off - this is especially true with my poetry. Most of the time I think that my writing has to do with me getting to know myself better, and even as I type these words, that sounds pathetic.
People have told me that they value my vulnerability, my willingness to bare my soul - so to speak. On this front, I feel inadequate too. I don’t feel like I am very honest most days as I write on this blog. There are still so many jumbled thoughts and conflicting ideas banging around in my head, and I constantly struggle with the fear of exposure, and whether to commit my thoughts to the screen, making them permanent.
Maybe that is partly why I write? When I put things on the internet, I know that they are there forever. Sure I could delete this blog, but the record would always be there (a lesson so many politicians learn the hard way). So is it about legacy, permanence, fighting my own mortality? At times the process of writing is definitely therapeutic - forcing Jekyll and Hyde out into the light, both at the same time.
As I make my way along the path towards twilight, what I am more certain of now than ever, is that I am less certain about everything. Gone are the days where I “know” the truth. Gone are the days where I even desire to make sense of it all. The world around me is on fire. Global economics, climate, politics, religions are all at war, polarization is now the norm. And yet, what I long for is more time in the mountains, more time amongst trees, and meadows and alongside rivers. Communing with natural world, reminds me of my insignificance in this vast cosmos. Dust on a tiny planet, amongst billions of stars, so vast that it is impossible to even shape my imagination around the notion.
And with all of these words having spilled out onto the screen, I have failed to answer my question. I don’t have a damn clue as to why I feel compelled to write, and then to publish my mediocre composition for all (well at least twenty of you) to see. And maybe that is part of it. Wrestling with my own identity, my existence; is there meaning, is there a greater plan, are we alone in the universe? Without clear answers, it is likely that I will continue to flail on the keyboard, and subject the inter-webs to my haphazard intrusions.