Before I bought this business, I was an artist. Culture was my passion before I had to make the logistical wheels of life turn as the “head of household”—you could say that’s where it all started. During my first year in college, I placated my desire for creativity by intentionally taking creative writing courses. It was there, in fluorescent-lit classrooms among curious faces, that we were able to turn our pastime of writing into double-loop learning—a wonderful introduction to higher education that I will never forget.
Topic: Why do you write?
This assignment seemed trite at first, but it was one I received several times over the years across liberal arts institutions. It was a simple “writing prompt”—a phrase meant to expand upon, react to, or catalyze a response. Yet, it always yielded profound, unexpected realizations that asked us as writers to look beyond mere introspection and recognize the broader purpose of writing as a practice.
In this world, you have to carve out a place for yourself; if you cannot, you are left with equity in the esoteric realm—something you can only cash in upon your physical departure from this earth. Yesterday was one of those unexplainable, high-energy days that fall upon me inadvertently from time to time. I thought that if I could keep that momentum going, I might be able to revive my career. Today, I aim to do just that, through writing.
For my whole life, I thought writing was the key to unlocking love. In truth, it is a faculty accessible through the cerebral multiplicity we enter when we write—the bridge from writing to speaking that builds us up. When speaking, you must combine all the new sensory aspects that come with vocal expression; with writing, however, you capture raw data. The idea is given form in a pure manner, open to deep interpretation by the reader.
Conversely, when speaking, you form words in your thoughts, but the way you match those words in a non-linear fashion relies on the frequencies of your voice—your intonation, inflections, and pitch. This power is how we project our identity to others; we use words and speech patterns to draw a perimeter around the space we have carved out for ourselves.
In doing so, others know what to expect and who we are. There is something to be said about the shapes we construct around ourselves. Given the chance, others strive to build shapes that fit into ours like a jigsaw puzzle—though the pieces don’t always fit.
Recently, while looking through the archives, I was reminded of a specific memory of a friend’s mom. She was explaining something to me that I was not ready to hear—something that took another 15 years for me to fully realize. When you read or hear something you aren’t yet ready to comprehend, it remains a moot point until time catches up.
When daylight fades—or when external clarity eludes us—writing becomes the headlamp through which we navigate the dark, illuminating the often unseen paths of our minds. We pick up the pen or face the blank screen not because we already have the answers, but because the act of articulation is itself an act of discovery, a journey that unearths hidden emotions and thoughts yearning to be expressed.
As we embark on this journey of self-discovery writing bridges the gap between our solitary experiences and the shared human condition.
In a world saturated with fleeting reactions and constant noise, writing demands deliberate presence. It requires us to slow down, sit with uncertainty, and illuminate the spaces between our experiences. We write to preserve what would otherwise be lost to time, to give form to the abstract, and to bridge the gap between our internal worlds and the shared human experience.
Ultimately, we write because language gives us a way to build a fire in the frost—a means to make sense of the shadows, find our footing, and shine a light forward for ourselves and anyone else walking through the dark.
Now it’s your turn. Why do you write? Answer in the comments below.
Contemporaries Who Wrote About Writing
- William Wordsworth (1770–1850): Blake’s peer and fellow Romantic poet famously reflected on the writing process in the preface to Lyrical Ballads, defining poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” His epic autobiographical poem, The Prelude, explores the growth of a writer’s mind
- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822): Wrote A Defence of Poetry (1821), a classic literary essay on the power and necessity of creative writing, famously concluding that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
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