Why write at all?
I’ve been grappling lately with the question, "Why write at all?" These little essays, dashed off in just about an hour each, sometimes feel like mere goldfish, scooped easily from a small bowl.
Every morning, I sit down at my desk, and before proceeding to the day's work write a thousand words in my journal, usually beginning as a simple record of recent events, then meandering into a relaxed examination of whatever else has been on my mind lately. Worries, excitements, new connections between old ideas, doubts, resolutions.
The danger here is of getting trapped within this small bowl of my own mind, swimming around in circles, never getting anywhere new. I want to break free, to head out into deeper waters and test my mettle with bigger challenges offering greater rewards: glittering expressions, likenesses of beauty, tiny crystalline truths.
I could very well live a good life without ever venturing out again on this unending creative journey with its infinitely forking mist-shrouded paths. Yet I also know that life would feel incomplete and hollow, if it's all about just pragmatic survival, day after day of literally just keeping on keeping on. There must be more to life than merely making a living!
I know, I know — the only way out is through. I write to keep myself going, to tell even just myself my own story, to continuously explore life and the world, to reach out and speak what little truths I've managed to uncover so far. And so despite my doubts I write this essay today, another honest unfinished attempt at I-know-not-what-quite-yet.
(This essay is part of a series of 30 essays.)