On Writing

It’s more than 3 years since I last wrote anything on this blog. Since then I’ve written countless copy posts for a bookstore I co-own, many exam papers for my main job as a teacher, and way too many mundane Instagram/Facebook posts that surely won’t make any tiny teensy dent in the world.

Was my life so boring that there was nothing to write about? Was I so boring I couldn’t find anything interesting to recount? Or have I been so bored of life I didn’t make any effort to do one of the few things that I keep saying makes me feel alive?

I was re-reading a few posts I wrote in early 2018 (we’re all narcissists aren’t we?) and chuckled throughout as I got to hang out with my younger wide-eyed selves (who I’m sure were much more pleasant company than her present self) when I reached the end where,  like in most of my failed resolutions, I declared my wish to arbitrarily write… more.

I’m the kind of writer that you know or at least know of. The kind who writes about not writing enough and surely never wrote enough. The kind who can’t find time to write her book but managed to write many things else that don’t matter. The kind who occasionally visits her ‘works’ which reminds her of how much she loves writing and yet never manages to walk the talk. The kind who might go to the grave and never finish the books she started.

I realize I have a love-hate relationship with writing. I love that I often feel good and in the zone whenever I write. Like I’m transported into a different place where nothing exists except me and that world. But I also hate writing, for it makes me feel both small and ambitious. In writing I realize I’m never good enough, and yet I feel like I should be able to make something out of it, or at least make some progress. And I hate the insecurity it brought out in me.

Can I just love writing for what it gives me, expect nothing in return, and just bask in the joy it gives me, even just as an escape from my dark thoughts, where I feel my existence to the core?

Can it just be one of those unrequited relationships that I know too much of and was happy in? Not expecting to be loved back, let alone the promise of a happy ending, or even just a glimpse of one. Because loving something or someone in itself is already an honour?

I’m going to end with the wise words of the formidable Anne Lamott because lately I realise that I don’t need the caffeine but the tea ceremony to calm my racing mind.

I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do – the actual act of writing – turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.