Why do I write?

Why do I write?

As with so many other questions that I have wrestled with, answering this one clearly, cogently and adequately is important to me, even it might not interest anybody else at all. And so, as with all such things, I am writing down the answer here primarily for myself.

I write because I can. Not everybody can: that is something I have found out over a very, very long time, having been a voracious reader since early childhood and a teacher of language for many decades, over two generations. I might have sung or played music or sculpted or painted if I could even half as confidently, but I cannot.

I write because I love to. And unlike so many other ‘loves’, this one has endured. Over more than four decades, so I can expect it to endure as long as my head and fingers work.

I write because I have seemingly endless things to say about endless things, and the wellspring has not dried up yet! Has nobody marvelled over the sheer variety of things I have written about? Doesn’t matter; I have.

I write because writing lasts in a much more satisfactory way than talking does – and I should know, after having talked tens of thousands of hours for a living! That is why Hammurabi and Ashoka carved their edicts in stone, that is why Caesar and Babur wrote diaries so painstakingly, that is why some people cared to write down what the Buddha and Jesus and Mohammed said. This very (comparatively-) insignificant effort, this blog, has lasted a long time already, in relation to the average human lifespan that is. So many readers have left impressions, so many new readers keep coming to visit, so many people have sent me thanks or congratulations for writing a multitude of different things, so many people have raised questions that have been a challenge and a pleasure to answer, so many old posts come back to the most-visited list again and again… also there is a possibility that the blog, and some other things I have written, may outlast me. There is no harm in dreaming that I shall be judged more deeply, sanely, fairly, wholly, than I was in my lifetime. Writing is one of the very few ways of leaving something worthwhile of yourself behind.

I write because it remains one of the great pleasures of my life to get back to things I wrote long ago – my first published piece is now forty five years old – and relish reading the best of them. I have tried passionately to hold on to many people all my life, but I have discovered beyond argument that my writing stays with me as people just don’t. If I live long enough, I’ll probably be peering at the best writing of others as well as myself through owlish glasses long after most of my faculties are gone.

I write because I am good for very little else.

I write because those who read my writing come closer to me than others can.

I write because I love life, because I believe that writing at its best can help to make living at least infinitesimally better for others, and also because I love the idea that I am going to die, and that most of my life is already spent.