I definitely don’t write for the money.  When I tell people I’m a writing minor, I usually follow it up with a joke about how employable I am.  Writing isn’t exactly a lucrative business and, with the explosion of blogging and the watering down of the industry, it’s becoming harder and harder to get noticed and make a living doing it.  As far as art forms go writing isn’t exactly cool either.  Miles Davis is cool.  Brad Pitt is cool.  JK Rowling is, uh, British.  Now that’s not to say there aren’t cool writers.  Jack Kerouac was undeniably cool. The main character on Californication is cool (but that’s probably because he’s played by David Duchovny and not because he’s a writer.)  As a whole writing isn’t particularly sexy.  

So if it’s not for the money and it isn’t to be cool then why do I write?  Do I want to change the world?  Well, not exactly.  Do I want to publish a bestselling novel that moves people to tears and guarantees thousands of fans that would worship the ground I walked on?  I mean yeah, if you’re offering.  But that’s not why I write. 

I’ve come up with three possible reasons as to why I write.  I’ll leave it up to you to decide which is the most convincing.  They’ll be presented in bold underlined font so if you get bored with one you can easily skip ahead to the next.  I hope you don’t get bored.

Argument 1: Look How Fucking Deep I Am

I think everyone likes to consider themselves somewhat enigmatic.  It’s interesting, it’s sexy, it says that you’re deep.  There’s more to you than meets the eye.  Oftentimes I find that this is untrue, that many people are exactly what meets the eye, and that attempting to dig deeper with them is akin to using a plastic spoon to dig through concrete.  I think this is true for an uncomfortably large amount of people, and that many who would go so far as to call themselves enigmatic or cryptic or inscrutable are in fact the easiest to figure out.  They use their inscrutability as a cover up for the fact that really there isn’t much there.  They’re base level.  With all that being said, I like to consider myself somewhat enigmatic.

So what does my (statistically improbable) inscrutability have to do with why I write?  I consider myself someone who lives something of a double life.  Not in like a schizo way or in a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde way, but in the same way that the majority of humanity chooses to wear different masks depending on the situation at hand.  There is the outer version of me, which is (I hope or tell myself) approachable and funny and kind and generally a glass half full kind of guy.  He’s the type of guy who gets invited to parties.  But underneath that version of myself is a kid who is scared and damaged and not even a glass half empty kind of guy as much as a ‘why the fuck do I even have a glass why does anyone bother with glass isn’t life so god damn menial’ kind of guy.  He’s the type of guy who gets left home from parties.  Now I don’t write this because I think that I’m alone in having a wide range of emotions.  Everybody has different moods.  It’s a good thing.  However, the damaged, Kurt Cobain knockoff voice in the back of my head is almost never heard.  Because who wants to listen to him?  Writing is a chance for that voice to be heard alongside the gregarious voice that I try to make accessible to those around me.  As cliche as it sounds, writing allows me to express every part of myself as well as talk about things that I generally wouldn’t otherwise.  Just because nobody wants to listen to Kurt Cobain knockoff doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be able to talk.

I don’t like talking about personal things.  At least not sober.  It makes me uncomfortable to have to look at somebody and spill out sad stories and watch them react.  Writing gives me an outlet to express things I don’t like to talk about.  When my mom died I didn’t talk about it, I wrote about it.  When my little brother came out I didn’t talk about it, I wrote about it.  Writing gave me an outlet to express my feelings on the situations without having to actually talk to people about them.  It didn’t matter to me if people read what I wrote.  If they did then at least I didn’t have to watch them read it.  What mattered was that I wrote it.

Argument 2: Ego

George Orwell talks about writing as a form of sheer egoism. Writing is one's desire to seem clever or to be remembered or to share experiences that they have convinced themselves that others must take part in.

So why do I write? Is it because I'm that self-centered? Ever since I was a little kid, I enjoyed being the center of attention. When we played follow the leader I always wanted to be the leader. When we played basketball I wanted to be the point guard. When we played football I wanted to be the quarterback. The examples go on and on. The writer is the equivalent of the point guard, the quarterback, the leader in part because there is no competition and in part because they are expressing their personal opinions, stories, anecdotes and telling themselves the reader cares. You are the always center of attention. Writing is the ultimate form of ego fulfillment.

I often find that people are bad at listening; that people, when they are supposed to be listening, are instead just waiting for their turn to talk again. That doesn't happen with writing. Writing is something where people pay (either through money or time) to hear your thoughts or stories. Readers sit down and dedicate their time just to hear what you have to say. There's no ulterior motive. They're not pushing an agenda. They're just listening to you. And that's kind of cool isn't it? That people are that interested in what you're saying?

I write because I think I have something worth saying or a story worth telling. I write because I think that it's a way to make somebody laugh while also making them think and grow. I also like to think (or hope or pray since I'm minoring) that I'm pretty good at it. And maybe that's just another example of the six year old kid whose ego is too big to play a position other than point guard. Who thinks he has a story worth sharing and has convinced himself that you want to read it. I hope I'm right.

Argument 3: Beauty (And Also Ego)

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”-Gary Provost

Writing is a medium that can play with your emotions, mess with your inner monologue, make you see the world in a different way.  Sometimes it does these things all at once.  It can tell stories or enact change or serve as an outlet for frustration.  It doesn’t need sound.  It doesn’t need stunning visuals or CGI.  Words spring to life off of the page and have the power to do so much.  

Writing is also an art form that doesn’t require any special talent really.  You don’t need musical experience or skill with a paintbrush.  Everybody who is literate and possesses the capacity and ability to put words on the page in some way or another is a ‘writer.’  But the best writers are capable of producing real art.  Things that can move you to tears or ruin your week or make you laugh so hard your stomach hurts for days.

So why do I write?  On the last page of my notebook I have a sheet where I’ve written down every quote that made me stop and rethink my life or made me marvel or made me just say “wow.”  It’s a little corny I know, but it’s also nice to have a collection of quotes that are really beautiful.  I want to write something someday that makes somebody stop and say “wow.”  I write in pursuit of that perfect paragraph or sentence, and my (aforementioned) ego is big enough to tell me I can create it.  Who knows maybe I’ve already written one and didn’t realize it at the time.  Maybe I’ll never write one.  But that won’t stop me from trying.

Conclusion

Another possibility that I am forced to acknowledge is that my ego and pursuit of beauty are inherently contradictory in nature to my desire to allow the dark voice in my head to speak. I want to allow that dark voice to have a say, but my ego refuses to allow that raw side to come out and play. I want every word of every sentence to be beautiful and meaningful, and sometimes that gets in the way of the brutal emotion I want to express. I try to allow those two sides to coexist, but sometimes I feel like that is not possible.

So why do I write? Instead of writing for one of these reasons it’s very possible that I write for all three. Perhaps the only true way to write something beautiful is to allow the darker voice inside my head to say it. That my ego drives my feeling that you’re even interested in what that voice has to say at all. That all three of these reasons swirl together in a mashed up, Neapolitan clusterfuck and that’s what really drives me as a writer. Maybe you don’t care. That’s fine. I get that. But on the off chance you do, consider the following: maybe writing is really just the perfect capturing of my self-expression at that particular moment in time. One day I’m feeling particularly egotistical and one day I feel like pursuing beauty and one day I’m depressed because I think I won’t attain it. Regardless, writing allows me to capture that emotion on that day in a way that no other form of media can.

So I guess there isn't a perfect answer to why I write, which makes sense because writing itself is so imperfect. And that's ok. Because at the end of the day I'm just happy to be here, happy to sit down and put down whatever's on my mind regardless of whether or not you really want to hear it. Because no matter what,  I truly write for myself and, as my own biggest fan and harshest critic, I'd like to think I'm doing a pretty good job.