Why I Write

Writing is soul searching. I used to believe that the sole reason why I write was for the fame it automatically summoned when the readers get to read me – and egoistic conviction I had to relinquish a long time ago for a) it is so conceited to admit so and b) that mantra will not blaze one’s writer spirit far, I can attest to that! 

I was in sophomore year in high school when my mom passed away. Seeing her lifeless body lying on her deathbed filled my heart with pain. To say that the world’s weight is on my shoulder was an understatement. It was more than that. I felt that sadness in my heart so alive. I was sent to darkness and there were voices instructing me how to feel  when even I did not understand half of it. 

For the first time, life hit me so badly I did things without knowing where am I going or what am I  to do so I grabbed a paper and pen and began to write. Remembering the day of accident up to the moment my mom was in coma. I wrote the arguing feelings in my heart until three pages were filled of words and drowned with tears. These words suddenly half my grieving as it seemingly served as the other child who feels the same way as I do. Even though, eventually, I realized my thoughts are broken, random and still unknown, I tried to write again. 

And that’s how it started.

Writing has become my way of identifying the greater hurts. Forgiveness is the first step to moving on but first I had to identify what had to be forgiven. Writing slowly discloses my thoughts and fears.

Writing has saved me from insanity. I do write because, as F. Sionil Jose wrote in 2008, “there is so much hypocrisy and cussedness in us and writers may be able to exorcise a bit of these”. Observing the society would make you see how sh—happens. Someone has to notice this; someone has to voice it out. Because that’s what separates one from the blinds.

Writing is helping me mature. The act itself forced me to face my flaws and weaknesses. I am 21 and I have already experience all the rejections in the world (now, that’s an overstatement!) from my journalism class that offered me grades that range from C+ to D- up to the college publication which employed a literary editor who had scrapped my articles even before I submitted it on a hardcopy, that editor that fussed around the office because I couldn’t generate arguments like De Quiros and did not have the wit of De Veyra. I also wrote about my co-members who are as approachable and as helpful as they don’t exist. Writing let me pour out all my angst on paper even before I did something stupid with that angst. It also gives me time to stop and think and let my most coveted desire to inflict pain be buried.

Eight years after mom’s death I have already grieved my loss. She is gone and could never be replaced but writing has helped me move on. My life is back together again. I quit the school publication sooner than I should. My editor and I were able to exchange smiles whenever we see each other in the corridor. 

I couldn’t be a “professional writer” on the basis that the term suggests: writer by profession but I could choose to live with how Richard Bach defines a professional writer, an amateur who didn’t quit. For as long as I meet (or lose) a person that inspires me to write I would find a hundred more stories to console this heart. Writing is not easy but is worth the hard work for the real cause and that is to unite man with his lonely and sensitive spirit.