It’s time to ask: Why do we write?
On the day when I am writing this, I have written about 80 articles on Medium and I have about 140 followers.
I typed this headline “Why do we write?” about two months back but could not write on it as I was busy and whenever I got free, I usually had a technical topic to write about. Today, the technical topic can wait and I can freely write about the topic of “Why do we write?”
It’s important to understand why one writes because that controls the content, their expectations from the writing exercise, and their emotional state.
The reason for writing affects your writing. You may not notice but the words you select, the content you generate, the people you connect with, and the message you spread are eventually impacted by the reason for writing. Writing affects you as a person and controls your thoughts and feelings. Not knowing “why do you write?” can disturb our peace. You can spend years writing and yet not achieve your goals.
Thus, it becomes very important to identify “why do you write?” and keep it in mind whenever you write. It acts as a guiding light and keeps you centered. You can produce good content and reach your goal sooner.
People write for various reasons. The most common reasons are:
- To Memorise
- For thought clarity & Goal setting
- Expression
- Money
- Recognition
- Spreading awareness
- Thought Manipulation
If you have any other reasons to write, please comment so that I can update the article and get to know a different side of a writer.
Writing for memorizing
It’s the very basic application of writing. It is prominently used by parents. Parents ask children to write and when they write, they start remembering words, phrases, and sentences.
Writing for clarity
- Did you ever face the dilemma of “what do you want”?
- Do you often struggle with many thoughts and indecisiveness?
Writing is the best remedy. It produces clarity in thoughts. If you start writing your thoughts on a piece of paper, it starts taking shape. The random ideas that you thought are scattered and not connected start showing relations and soon you will identify why these ideas keep popping up in your mind. You start realizing the influence of society and surroundings on those ideas and with a minor effort, you can eliminate the trivial ideas.
A simple exercise that I can suggest to you for thought clarity:
Start writing whatever ideas you have. Don’t try to give them a shape but try to write as much as you can. Think about the idea and describe it in detail. For every new idea, write as much as you can. Write every aspect of it.
In a few days, you will realize that the ideas are revolving around a theme that has been governing you your whole life. Now, when you start exploring the various dimensions of this theme, your life starts improving. You can not only control your efforts but also control your thoughts.
You can explore the idea and its impact on your life. What do you need to do to enhance your quality of life?
Writing for expression
Writing for expression is a talent that you need to learn from children. They put down their emotions on a piece of paper and can change the emotional state of any individual with that paper. It’s a cathartic exercise.
If you are feeling bad, sad, angry, envious, or down. Just start writing your emotions on a piece of paper. Don’t limit yourself. Express everything on the paper and burn it. You do it a couple of times and you will feel refreshed. It takes you to a blank state that you haven’t felt in a long time.
It’s so simple that people don’t try it. They don’t believe that this can work. But it does, it has been working for a long time. Children know it, they use it. They know happiness can be communicated via writing and that’s why they use gift cards that they have produced.
Writing also has another side to it. It can generate money, fame, or recognition and can manipulate the thoughts of people. It’s a skill and like any other skill when you practice long enough, you can master it.
Writing for money & recognition
They usually go hand in hand. As your writing improves, it starts getting recognized and people start showing interest in the content. Once that happens, you can use it to generate revenue.
For some, writing is a skill that earns them their livelihood. For others, it is a skill that helps them connect with the world.
To someone who wants to make money via writing, they focus on the demand and money. For someone who wants to get recognition, they focus on their unique author print.
Spreading awareness & Manipulation
Writing can alter the thoughts of an author and the reader who would read the content. The content I read in my childhood still influences the decisions that I make today.
Your perception of the world is shaped by books, blogs, news, and media. You start reading science and you will start noticing how science rules your life and how every phenomenon of life is simple science. You start reading poetry and you will notice how life itself is a big poem.
You start reading about an economic slowdown, job loss, hunger, poverty, and global warming and you will realize how we are all going to end up in a messed-up world. On the contrary, you start reading about the initiatives taken by people to make this world a better place and you will start feeling a promising world with a satisfied human being.
There is everything available here. You can write for anything. You can write for motivation, hope, love, affection, education, and enlightenment. You can also write for money, fame, reputation, attention, etc. Or you can write for the benefits of memory, clarity, awareness, etc.
The key is to know why you are writing and keep remembering it every day.
When you stop doing that, you start mixing things and getting influenced by others. It stops you from being you. The joy of writing stops flowing and it prevents you from enjoying the process.
