I write because I feel worse when I don’t.
Most writers I have met claim to write because they love writing. Whether it be because it allows them to create worlds they cannot access in reality or because they find a sense of fulfilment in arranging words like puzzles to be solved, I have never been able to relate.
When people ask me why I write, I give them an answer that sounds thought-through, but conventional enough that it doesn’t raise any eyebrows. I tell them I write because it allows me to capture the moments of humanity that we live for. I write because I love to explore human relationships and yearn to create my own portrait of human intimacy. I write because I am drawn to the ways in which I am able to construct sentences that can speak for people out there, just like me, who long to be heard, but don’t have the courage to be noticed. While these are not lies, they are not complete truths either. As a writer, creating romantic narratives about what drives me comes easily, almost instinctively.
But recently, I’ve been trying to become more honest, and I have a confession to make. While I love having written, I don’t know if I have ever, even once, enjoyed the process itself.
My relationship with writing is akin to the way I feel about food. While others savour a cube of caramel melting to nothing in their mouths or relish a spoon of hot pumpkin soup as it settles on their taste buds, I swallow my mouthfuls mindlessly. A friend once told me that she loves eating because it allows her to appreciate the time and effort of the chef, like doing an artist justice by observing their artwork with utter sincerity. While I understand her sentiment, food, to me, remains something I simply consume in order to stay alive. Just as my body struggles without sustenance, I can feel my mind deteriorating when deprived of writing for too long. My certainty about writing is one of the only topics I can assert without a speck of shame and Mieko Kawakami phrases it perfectly in her novel Breast and Eggs:
“Writing is my life’s work. I am absolutely positive that this is what I’m here to do. Even if it turns out that I don’t have the ability, and no one out there wants to read a single word of it, there’s nothing I can do about this feeling. I can’t make it go away”
— Breast and Eggs, Mieko Kawakami
Despite my conviction, on some days, I despise how impossible it is to know which combination of words is the closest to correct, I detest not knowing whether to write less or more, and I feel like I’m drowning in the fear that my work will be meaningless to most people. And worse than all of the not knowing, is the knowing that feeling these things is the lot of a writer.
Even as I’m writing now, I’m plagued with trivial doubts about grammar and sentence structure and whether this piece will even make it out of my drafts. The hidden Grammarly premium suggestions only exacerbate my apprehension. But I know that without the completion of this piece, my question will be unanswered, and I’ve always been the kind of person to never leave a page blank on an exam.
The world doesn’t make much sense to me until I write it down. Every day is saturated with question marks and although I’m rarely able to straighten out their squiggles into an exclamation mark, the attempt in trying to understand is what liberates me from the burden of uncertainty.
In her essay with the same title, Why I Write, Joan Didion articulates that writing for her is also a tool for comprehension:
“I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”
— Why I Write, Joan Didion
There are many things I love, and only a few things I like. And yet, I happen to like being alive. Right now, I don’t know life enough to love it, but I’m not opposed to it in the far future after we sit down and have more meals together. I want to pass through time with the utmost appreciation for what makes my life my own and I believe the best way I can do that is to feel first and understand second. Writing enables me to do exactly that and that is why I write.