Why We Write

That title was way more alliterative than I meant for it to be.

We taking writing for granted. We are surrounded by thousands of books, yet we never ask the question.In our Literature classes, we are taught how to write, we are taught when we write what, we are even taught what other's writing could possibly mean. But we never are taught why.

This is a little disturbing. Thousands of books, millions, and yet we assume they merely appeared there. Writing anything takes effort, and a novel is a marathon. People don't write just because they are bored. So why do we?

Identity.

I believe it was Carl Sagan who said, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." There is a whole lot of stuff out there, and it's hard to find where our identity begins. So I write, and hope that in doing so, I can sift out myself. I've taken up writing poetry. In the two days I've done it, I found a certain freedom. Poetry is unbound by the rules of grammar, a spew of thoughts, rather than a lab report of them.

Writing is liberating. I think. I think a lot of things, and they are hard to share verbally. But an idea leaves an impression, one that can be painted across a canvas and shared with the world. Words are merely another medium. I am an artist and I write because that is how I find who I am.