Why we write?

For some of us, the question I asked in the title could look far easier to answer than "why we live?". Everyone who has written some personal feelings or thoughts on paper or has been writing for a while has got their own reasons for seeking out a paper sheet. Now, as per my experience and conjecture, some reasons are felt personally and some have been the result of observing another person. There could be many others. What am I trying to achieve here? To highlight those very reasons which make a person choose a paper to let out his/her thoughts.

Sometimes, we pen down their feelings because we are afraid to share them with someone else but at the same time, cannot keep them bottled up also. These feelings of ours begin to bother us so much that they need to be addressed. Maybe our thoughts are revolutionary or rebellious or maybe they are the type the others may not exactly sidle up to. The need for a silent friend who you can talk to without the expectation of a mutual duty on your part arises. Ergo, the paper is waiting.

Then, there are some things you wouldn't actually like to talk about with someone, even if that person plays a vital role in your life by being either a close friend, a romantic partner or a spouse. Despite sharing other chunks of your life, you end up having second thoughts about sharing certain ideas or opinions with them. And since you have placed a mental blockade on them, you feel like you would feel better if they could be made to bother you less as there are other things to attend to also. These thoughts of yours, kept in mental shackles, have a habit of alternating between rolling around in your head and coming to rest. To make more sense of those feelings, ideas or opinions, you take refuge in a sheet of paper. A few might even throw away or burn that sheet for fear of being judged but they have put their views down at least.

On the other hand, there are also cases when we do not have someone to talk to. This could happen, even in a gabby nation like India, because a certain class of people needs something more than small talk and other seemingly trivial discussions on a daily basis to consider having lived a meaningful part of life that day. So, for the thinking lot, there comes a time when you have got feelings and thoughts piling up for many days and there is no one to share them with. Here comes the paper again, your silent friend. All it needs is you to take up a pen and jot down whatever you want to say.

Till now, I have talked about three main reasons that drive people to writing. Writing because you are afraid to talk about something with others, or because you do not want to share at all and writing as you do not have someone to share your thoughts with.

People write for other reasons too.

Sometimes, a deeply-lodged pain gets a creative outlet. The pain finds an intellectual release even when the words that come out at first are coarse and ill-chosen.

And yeah, that well-felt and well-advertised feeling of loneliness. One other reason people turn to the page. How can I leave that one out? The same feeling that makes us want to be in the company of others like us or in desperate situations, even different from us. The feeling that makes us want to have someone special in our lives, someone we have chosen and have been chosen by them. The feeling of the times when even the blessed realm of solitude could seem like a cross to bear for the ones who cherish their alone time. 

For a certain crop of people, jotting down their thoughts on paper comes naturally to them. They aren't driven specifically by any of the reasons listed above, but have somehow discovered the joys of penning down things, with no clear motivation.

Some of us do it on a regular basis to inculcate discipline, and not to pursue a career in writing. 

Others begin to do it on a regular basis because they want to become better writers.

At times, we take the pen-and-paper route just to organise our jumbled thoughts, draw up a plan, think deeper about our topics of interest, understand and solve problems by making and then taking the aid of diagrams and other related scribblings.

While there are also people for whom writing works purely as a tension-reliever and sleep-inducer. For them, the paper is a sink for their emotional issues (or at least some of them). They don't have literary ambitions. They pour out their emotional 'malaise' on paper, so to speak, because by doing so, their minds feel freed at least for a bit of time, the time in which they can get a restful sleep. Yeah, writing so that they can sleep well. It doesn't look like a very encouraging scenario but who knows? Perhaps it would help them out with whatever stress they are dealing with in the long run.

Do you think there are other motivations behind why people write? Let me know in the comments below.