Over the years I have written a lot, yet published very little. I have drafts from more than 15 years ago, still unfinished and in some cases, completely abandoned. A few months ago, I decided to take down all of my posts again from a blog that I had only had for a few months. I had a few issues with the platform that I was publishing on, but also around the same time I found myself repeatedly thinking to myself “why do I even write?” and “what is the purpose of this?”
It took me a couple of months to come back and revisit that question once again. Life had taken the best out of me in every way imaginable. I was burnt out and exhausted, yet, that seemed like the perfect time for asking myself again “why do I even write?”
This is harder to answer than it looks. I don’t think a deliberate act could be meaningfully explained by its actor, if the actor is conscious. The consciousness will always branch into either ego-boosting or self-deprecating stories that may have little to no roots in reality.
As an example, I may like to tell others that “I love writing, and that’s why I write.” Whilst the real reason could be a narcissistic desire to be celebrated by others, jealousy since someone I like or dislike also writes, or simply because I am not good at anything else. However, I may genuinely believe that I love writing and that’s why I write[1].
Like an ocean that has no control over its destiny, our conscious mind also has no power over its own consciousness.
I write, to publish
To get around this problem, I asked myself instead “what do I do with my writings?”
Broadly speaking, I start by keeping notes when they are just an idea, so they don’t evaporate from my memory like they had never existed. I add to, edit and review those notes that have a higher potential for becoming something useful in the future, and eventually I publish the ones that I feel are worth sharing with others.
Looking at it this way, one could argue that the first two items in the list are only precursors to the final step, which is publishing a work and seeking an audience — arguably, the main reason behind publishing anything.
In other words, you could say “I write, to publish.”
Although this may seem fairly benign, I had a very difficult time accepting it. Writing to publish meant my work had substance; worthy of being read, exchanged for a nonreturnable piece of someone else’s most valuable asset: Life. And that screamed arrogance. Something that I remain wary of as I know how quickly, and quietly, it can pollute my thoughts and actions.
What if my work was worthy of being read, I hear you ask. Fair question. However, it only moves the problem slightly further down the road: How would you know if a piece of work is worth reading? Or, are you suggesting that everything I write is worthy of reading? The ultimate form of arrogance.
Honesty. Expertise. Insight. Good intentions. None could cut it for me. I kept thinking and I kept circling back to ego and arrogance. My deceptive enemies, against whom I have lost countless battles. Enemies that I know I will face again, even on my deathbed as I prepare to depart — when I wonder faintly “Was I good?”
Finding purpose
Days went by and I was stuck, until my brain arrived at an idea it could finally accept.
“My thoughts are the only true product of my life as a conscious being, shaped by experiences acquired at a cost. To share those thoughts is to preserve the outcome of my existence.”
In other words, for all the air molecules that I have breathed in and out since my conception, for every ray of sunlight that I felt and captured throughout my life, for every breeze of cold air that I have exchanged heat with, and for every moment I participated in the universe’s irreversible processes, my thoughts are the only true outcome.
The sum of everything that has made me.
At some unknown point in the future, my inevitable death will greatly hinder my ability to influence existence, once the biological processes that sustain my life cease.
From there onwards, I will be merely a passive lump of matter, waiting to be in a billion pieces again, decomposed into the universe that once gave me thoughts.
And I will begin the process of becoming part of nature again — the nature I feel, love, and admire today.
Similarly, the things that I have built will eventually break beyond repair or become uneconomical to restore to usefulness by their owners. The plants that I have planted will be dust and pigment one day. The animals that I have pet and fed will decay and decompose, peacefully, into the nature that is the mother of all of us.
And one day, someone is going to remember me for the last time, ever. From that moment onward, I truly cease to exist. Even as a thought or memory in another mind.
Life is indeed the greatest tragedy. Given just to be taken. A tragic play we are forced to be the hero of. Fortunate and unfortunate at the same time. The winner of a lottery we never bought a ticket for.
The most valuable gift that no one gets to keep long enough. And as if that wasn’t unfair enough, there are no courtrooms or juries that you could complain to. No laws or exceptions that could spare you from returning the gift, no matter how good of a carer you were and how much you valued the invaluable.
But if all the magic, pain and beauties of life have led us to think and experience, is it unreasonable to capture them? To write them on a piece of paper, put the paper in a bottle and throw it into the vast ocean of consciousness that is all around us?
And I question myself as I write these words.
Aren’t we all a stream of unfinished thoughts, after all? Stuck in a loop of being and not being, not out of will, but by force, and ignored each time around.
Why do I write?
Going back to the question I started with: I still don’t know why I write. Ego? Arrogance? Desire for attention? The impulses are too tangled to unknot. I am blind to my own machinery and the true roots remain shrouded, even to me — and I still don’t believe a deliberate act could be meaningfully explained by its conscious actor.
All I know is that I would be invisible to myself without my thoughts. Or more precisely: My thoughts are the sole evidence of being that my handicapped conscious mind can grasp.
Cogito, ergo sum.
Without them, I wouldn’t know, or couldn’t prove that I ever existed.
So, I write — in many ways like a monkey tapping aimlessly on a typewriter. Aware and unaware at the same time. Conscious and subconscious simultaneously. Right and wrong all at once.
Nevertheless, what I write is the sum of my existence: The product of everything I have taken in, and everything that has made me.
Like invisible waves that rip through matter for millions of light-years — unaware of being intercepted and unbothered by the recipient — my thoughts are more than just proof I was here. They are the final result of my existence.
Footnotes
We are more familiar and more inclined to accept such behaviour in the context of psychological biases, but less likely when the same principle is posed on the consciousness as a whole. ↩︎