I Enjoy Writing

I enjoy writing. I write stories. I write every day in journals. I write weekly blogs. I write endless emails. I write book and article reviews. I write academic research papers. I have books that I have written both fiction and nonfiction that I have not published. I wrote them because I love to write. But, writing isn't just about enjoyment. It is about organizing your thoughts, reflecting on your life, and communicating ideas to others.

All of us have stuff going on inside of us all the time. There are thoughts, feelings, reactions, insights, hopes, desires, great ideas, misunderstanding, fantasies, paranoid delusions, and so on. If we just let these things ricochet around our psyche our internal condition becomes more like a compose heap than a well defined self.

We like to organize these bits of psychic energy into coherent thoughts and externalize them for the purposes of validation. That is, we want to externalize our internal states so others can look at them and tell us that we are not crazy.

The most common way to do this is simply by talking to others. There is a reason why people like to talk. Some talk on the phone. Some talk face to face to friends. Others pay professionals to talk to them. But, we need to talk. Talking helps us sort through our compost heap we call the self and turn it into a garden we call the persona.

Not everybody likes to talk. Some people wish to pretend they don't have a compost heap. Others find different ways in which to reveal it for validation. Some people do it though art. Some through music. Others will find alternative artistic outlets like crafts or cooking. When you see somebody's art or listen to their music, you are experiencing their internal struggles. And when you eat somebody's cooking... well we don't want to put too fine a point on it.

And, of course, there are those who will choose writing. Some will text or email. Others write notes. Some write journals or diaries, blogs, websites or paper articles. Some will write stories or essays. Others will write books. But, writing is a very special way of sorting ourselves out. It is precise and disciplined. We have to know what we want to say and work it into a recognizable structure. Once something is written it becomes real. It becomes sorted. It starts to make sense. 

So, here are four benefits of writing: 1) It allows you to ventilate, 2) It allows you to organize your thoughts, 3) It allows you communicate with others, and 4) It is a form of creative expression that can be very satisfying.

And that is why I enjoy writing.