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Writing in Search of Self
Rosencrantz
2 Sep 2002
"Writing comes more easily if you have something to say." -Sholem Asch
And it's very true. We all write for a purpose. To entertain, to enlighten, to inform, to criticize, to observe, to record, to tell to those blank leaves what we aren't willing to tell to others. It's all done in the attempt to do something, to say something.
I only really write when I read. Reading good pieces of writing gives me the inspiration to write. I started reading Moby-Dick or The Whale recently and have gone completely overboard about Melville. And as such, I feel not only inspired to read more (Walden and Leaves of Grass are next on the hit parade) but to write as well.
I have a sketchbook for my Art class that's supposed to be filled with wonderful sketches of things that come to me in moments of inspiration, when the muses are working their magic (All my muses are female…) and yet, the sketchbook, while it does have some pictures or ideas of things floating in it, I find the words I scribble in there to be some of the best I've ever written. I hate journals and yet the sketchbook has become one.
And in a sense, these essays I write are journals as well. Topics for ideas come to me based on events and experiences in my life and it just so happens that, for some unknown reason, my senior year is looking to be the most profitable of my writing age. I'm writing more than ever.
But why do I write? Do I write because I'm miserable or am I miserable because I write? Would I have to deal with these insane feelings if I didn't write them down? Sure I would. Would I feel these things if I didn't write them down? Sometimes I'm not so sure.
Writing, I'm discovering, places things in perspective and allows for a clearer view…though this clearer view is occasionally more distorted than the original view, which leads to more analyzing or more thinking or more feeling. It's cheap therapy, enough introspection to make Wilhelm proud.
But if I write because I have something to say, to whom am I saying it to? I am not writing to entertain by any means…though I'm sure some of you must get some twisted pleasure in knowing that I too feel the wrath of a heartbeat. I'm not here to inform or to enlighten. I'm only criticizing myself. Myself. I'm writing for myself. But if that were true…why post it on a website or write a piece as if I were addressing someone else though they're not here (That's called apostrophe).
I'll admit…I just don't know why. I'm sure on some level I do know why but I've not reached that level. Not yet. I'll know soon enough. Out of the writing I'll learn. And I'll continue to learn because above all things I crave knowledge and understanding of things that would otherwise elude my grasp.
Like that of a poem, or of a person, or of myself. I elude myself. I run around, scribbling lines of random thought and piecing them together in hopes of grasping whatever it is that is me. I've probably stumbled over it already and just gone on my merry, miserable little way. Myself is probably sitting back some years ago, waiting for me to turn around and realize that I've left me somewhere. I won't say that I left me behind. Perhaps I tossed me forward or to the east.
It all comes pouring out sometimes. The ideas, the thoughts, the feelings, the emotion, the joy of life, the misery of life, the absolute recklessness of love, lust, and passion. At some point it all has to be told and explored and felt and understood. And I intend to do just that.
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