Musings on the Poetic, the Prosaic, and the Expression of Soul

So. I've been thinking, mostly on philosophical and abstract subjects, and this was my train of thought during one of those pensive days:

I asked myself a very basic, but no less important, question. Why do we write?

At some point in our lives, we learn to express ourselves through writing. Whether we are “good” writers or not, whether we know the rules of grammar or ignore them, whether we scrawl or flourish, type or write freehand – we all write.

People need words. Language is our connection to the world around us, to other people, even to ourselves. We are human, which means we live in dependence on other human beings: for moral and emotional support, for stability, for comfort and advice, for pleasure and happiness. We convey our emotions and needs to other people through both speech and the written word; moreover, we transcribe our own emotions by writing.

We write in diaries and journals and blogs, or on whatever we can grab at the time. Each of us has a muse, and each muse is different. Some are more artistic, others more logical. But the thing that ties us all together, in and amongst all our differences, is our ability to convey our feelings through the written word. Sometimes, we don’t exactly understand our own feelings, and we often find it hard to express them to others; this is where writing comes in. When we can’t discern our emotions, we write. We write nonsense and rambles and tirades and meaningless things. We write poetry, even if we ourselves don’t understand the words. We write stories about ourselves and ourselves reflected in characters and characters that have lives entirely different from ours. We write longings and hopings and dreamings, happiness and sadness, hatred and love. And in all of this, we somehow find ourselves.

Whoever is reading this right now, I encourage you - I implore you - to write, and to never stop.