Why I Write

I wish I could give some poetic answer.

Why do I write?

Why does the orchid bloom?

Why does the Spider sew her web?

Such things are our nature.

Now, this would not only be a godawful cheese-sandwich, but also incredibly disingenuous. This isn’t me. And this isn’t how writing is for me...

So why do I write?

I actually asked myself this question about a year ago. I was - and still am to a lesser degree - suffering from tempestuous bouts of poor mental health. But back then, my self esteem, if tangible, would have resembled the under-scrapings of vagabond’s toenail. Sure I hid behind a cheery facade in public, but inside; I was having an existential crisis.

This was clear in my writing and I was using my journal as a confession-box, psychiatrist, and punching bag. Pages became torn as I scrawled in vicious vigour things I hope no one ever reads.

Soon enough, I turned my anger on writing itself.

Why do I even do this? I asked in scratchy ink. Why do I write? Do I even enjoy it?

I began to second guess this thing I’d come to associate myself with. If I tried really hard, I could remember when it all began.

I’d written a poem at school when I was maybe 8 or 9. It was about the planes of World War Two and I drew a picture of a Spitfire to go along with it. To my astonishment, they published it in the local paper. There were a couple other poems from kids at other schools, but mine was front and centre. They even included the picture.

Most impressively there was my name too, printed just like all the names of the real journalists.

By Georgie Gnu

I guess that taste of acknowledgement was all it took. I’d found something I was good at, something that earned me pats on the back and beams from my parents. I felt their pride. I was proud of myself!

And so I kept writing. I kept chasing that pat on the back. I chased it all the way to university, because, well what else would I study? There was nothing else I was good at...

But after university, away from the grades and rankings of formal education, I began to lose interest. I travelled: I moved to Canada, then to Spain, then Mexico, then back to Spain. I backpacked through Cambodia, worked my way around The Canary Islands, and fell in love in Vienna. I crashed through my mid-twenties like I was white-water rafting, living in the moment, thinking of only my present or immediate future.

I was living through the most thrilling days of my life so far, hands down, and yet there my notebook sat; forgotten, its pages barren.

I knew it was there, looking at me like a sad puppy. I would pick it up out of guilt every now and then, scribble down something semi-creative, then toss it aside and jump back in that raft.

I later years, I made more of an effort. I started journaling again, trying to reignite the writer within.

And then came the crisis.

It was like I’d been enjoying that river-ride so much that I’d let the torrent take me far from anything familiar. Now drifting calmly down the stream, I looked around and realised how lost I really was.

I’d gone so adrift, I wasn’t sure where I’d taken a wrong turn. Where I’d left the real me.

So, as I backtracked through my life, tearing up my personality and scrutinising my formative years, I of course turned on writing.

I prodded and probed the author in me. Sure, for as long as I could remember I’d wanted to be a writer. But why? Was it the idea of not having a real job? I mean, every paid job I’d had was the epitome of hell. Maybe I saw writing as a way of avoiding that.

Or was it an ego thing? We’re my dreams of being a writer fuelled by some desperate need to be admired or remembered. Deep down, did I just crave my own Wikipedia page? In the throws of depression, the answer came from dark places, in disgusted whispers of “yes, you pathetic attention-seeker”.

I came pretty close to convincing myself that my entire being - writing included - stemmed from desperation rather than love or joy.

But the more I wrote, the more the clouds seemed to part. Even in my darkest period, putting vile words on the page seemed to help. Each time I wrote, the weight of existence would lighten.

It’s funny, really. Even as I doubted my love of writing and my reasons behind wanting to be a writer, I did so with a pen and a notepad.

The storm inside my head gradually grew less volatile and on the clear days, I asked myself again: Why do I write? Why do I want to write?

The short answer - after such a long-winded rant - is to find and share the truth.

In myself and in the world.

I think in a world so tangled up in agendas and ulterior motives, more and more of us need to communicate truthfully. We need to be honest about ourselves and our society. The more we spread lies and wear masks and pretend life is something it’s not, the further away from our true selves we’ll drift. Soon enough, we’ll realise that we are so far gone, there’s no way of telling where we went astray. We’ll be well and truly lost.

So however you communicate, be it painting, dance, film, photography, spoken word, writing, whatever...do it honestly. Do for the truth.

Not only might you find yourself, but you might just help others find themselves too.