Why I write

I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker.

— Gwendolyn Brooks

Why do I write? Is the central question of this post.

I write to cope, survive, and feel less alone in my labyrinth of suffering. I’ve always found comfort in writers like Anaïs Nin and Kafka, who also felt great pain and used writing as a form of self-medication. I’m now prescribing myself the same opium and try to figure out the right dosage along the way.

We use language to communicate what we think and feel. According to Lacan we are determined by language; a person is a speaking-being (parlêtre). We suffer from it but also try to alleviate our suffering by using it.

Writing is to me a less intimidating, more private, and safer way to express what I feel than talking about it. I’m afraid of someone witnessing me in the act of conveying my emotions; I want to escape from their immediate response and hide from their gaze.

We essentially write for an invisible audience. What is written can be addressed to someone or intended to be read by others, like I am writing now for you: the person reading this on Substack. However the other person reading it, reads it afterwards when the process of writing is completed; when a pen or keyboard has ceased inscribing its physical or virtual paper. Writing is therefore a private act. Only in rare instances will someone look over your shoulders while you’re writing (the thought alone makes me shake to the bone), and allowing another person to proofread creates a moment of pause.

On the one hand, writing can be seen as setting words into stone versus spoken words that are not ‘permanent’ and float around. On the other hand, something written can be destroyed or deleted, and what we say can live on in someone’s memory. Both writing and speaking come with the danger (as I see it, i’m fearful of the other that can recall my words) of someone remembering it. However, I feel comforted by being able to eradicate something i’ve written or typed out (i’m not an expert on the technicalities of a digital footprint) while I can’t undo something i’ve said.

My purpose of having a Substack is to create an outlet for myself and to get out of my comfort zone by writing more (for an audience) so I can improve my writing skills. To get over my fear of ‘bad writing’ and to write vigorously and unapologetically. It is essential to review and correct what you’ve written, to be observant and mindful so you can better your vocabulary, grammar, and interpunction. Yet, perfectionism can also set you back. I also believe in trying to radically accept your flaws and to produce despite it. I need practice to learn, and nit-picking what I’ve written to the letter will only stop me from writing.

I want to write for all: neurotics (obsessionals and hysterics), psychotics, and perverts.

And I specifically want to write for the loners and outcasts, the disordered and deranged, the sad and hopeless, the vicious and evil. Above all, I’m writing for myself: the freak that doesn’t know how to live.