The answer to this question, sadly, is different from the one: Why did I start writing?
I guess it’s pretty easy for most who write regularly to answer why they write: To survive. To be able to cope with the world. To be able to tell themself it’s alright; it’s worth living another day. Just to carry on. To be able to heal from the process of living and be “fine” with it, we all need to write. Many haven’t discovered this, and many more haven’t had the privilege to — but this is the reality for a majority of humans.
It’s a process we need to find ourselves.
More than reading, we need to write. More than singing, we need to write. We need to string words one after another so that they let us express, with the hope that someone someday will resonate with the collection of them. Even if they don’t, we write to feel less lonely, less tired, less flustered, less worthless, less suffering; more attuned to the hums of the world, and more reason to get up and try to move the world a bit towards the ways we think it should.
I need to write to carry on living.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I also write to make a living. It’s a pleasure to be able to do just that — string words one after another to express a complex thought — and also pay the bills. However, it’s not the same. Making a living is different from living or finding a reason to live. It’s the bare minimum we need to do to be alive. But there is so much more. And to explore that world more, I need to write.
This is all I can do. As powerful as it may seem, it is the only thing that I can do if you take everything else from me but provide me with food. Stationary is all I would want. I would be content if you could provide me with a laptop with a notes app. It’s the bare minimum work that a non-hungry me can execute. It’s the only exercise that my brain can follow. It can think and express without anyone else around, by writing. It’s a way for me to explore the power of my being, the senselessness of it all, the helplessness of people around me, the meaninglessness of our thoughts, and our darefulness of trying to make sense of the world or trying to change it. I derive the meaning of my meaningless life and of all those around us by writing. Let me write, and I shall be fine.
This is why I started writing. I had trouble growing up, and I had trouble of all kinds. I couldn’t talk about my troubles; I had no hope that anyone would have any clue about what troubled me. So, I started writing.
Then I wrote poems — as silly as it seems — on rainbows and love.
Then, I wrote about anguish, desire, and the power of my youth.
Then I wrote a bunch of things that made sense to other scientists, increasingly to a decreasing number of them.
In the meantime, I wrote about things that would inform people.
Then, I started writing about things that I wanted to document. Gradually, writing became my bread and butter, and I am grateful for that.
Then came ChatGPT, and the world wondered whether it made any more sense to write anymore. In a new world, many people do not write from scratch. That is okay. I can live with that world as long as it lets me be. And for that, I need to keep writing.
The meaning of writing keeps changing as I think about writing, as I talk about writing, and as I write about writing. The process of writing remains the same, however. I find out more about the world, the way I think about it, and the way I should think about it when I put pen to paper or press the keys. Nothing excites me more than a fresh sheet of paper or a digital notebook that I can fill up with my thoughts. Because the process lets me be, makes me explore, flexes my thoughts, and takes me one step closer to not dying.
There are many more reasons, but they are all variants of the same. For now, I believe I have answered why I started writing and why I keep writing other than paying my bills. I thank the cut-down trees for that!
Inspired by this LinkedIn post.
Debdutta Paul 