There are few greater pleasures than spending an afternoon with a handful of your finest friends, sharing a cup of tea and discussing the latest goings on in your lives, your social circles and the world in general. We’ve all had those afternoons; new, exciting, almost revolutionary ideas buzz around the table, straight from the creative minds of my fellow writers. At my university myself and my coursemates have a wonderful themed room just for these sorts of discussions. Our very own writers room - the Lighthouse. On one of these such afternoons, as I found myself pouring a third round of the good old English breakfast, when one question arose within our conversation.
“Why do you write?” Admittedly, it’s not a question I find myself pondering all that often, despite my consistent liaisons with pen and page. Of course, everyone has a unique but nonetheless valid answer to the question. Each of us, I found rather quickly, write for different reasons. Some of us write for our sanity, to express what we feel, and how, and when; to make sense of the insensible. Some of us write for the sake of our readers, who support us in our self expression, and with any luck, will someday buy the work we produce. I soon found I could not stop thinking about this question. As ever, I took to social media so ask my writing community what they thought. I was pleasantly surprised to find that many people shared my love for writing: “Because it’s fun!” one person commented, “To escape!” But for many of us, it seems us writers are driven by a true sense of need: “My brain has stories going round like bumper cars, so I write to get them out!” “Because it gives me a reason to get through the day.” “Because it would be ridiculous to stop now.” But what about me? Why do I write? It is inarguable that words are an incredible source of power within society. Using the right words can end wars, using the wrong words can start them. Throughout human history, literature has shaped and changed the way we see ourselves, wider society, and the human race. Simply reading the Diary of Anne Frank can grant you empathy for the victims of the holocaust, whilst reading Orwell’s ‘1984’ can instill an uncomfortable feeling of relatability to the globe’s current political climate. Writing, in the simplest of terms, has always been a coping mechanism for me. It allows me to influence the world around me, and to share ideas, issues and experiences in an entertaining, engaging and potentially influential way. When I am lost for words to speak, I seem to find them again in a well composed letter or article, even a poem occasionally. For me, writing helps me to understand myself in relation to our ever-growing, ever-changing world, my place amongst the chaos that is the everyday. So, why should you write? Certainly the only way any of us can be sure that our memories will live beyond our years is by founding our own legacy through our words. So much of our knowledge comes from the lessons learned from what we read, what we see and what we hear. By writing we immortalise our most virtuous values, capture images of our innermost selves that have the chance to stand the test of time in ways we as people never will. And so, write. Write to be understood, to understand, to light fires in the minds of your fellow readers, philosophers and friends. Write in the face of anger, of adversity, of all the things that have ever made you feel something stronger than you could verbalise. Write regardless of those who say you can’t, because there is nothing better than proving others, and yourself, wrong. Write even when you feel as if you can’t. All that matters is that you write.