To write or not to write

If people ask me this question for a million times my answer will still be the same. To write or not to write is never the question. The real question is how.

For me, writing is not just to get recognition or feel productive but it is my life. Writers write because it compels them to write. You don’t decide if you want to be a writer. It chooses you. It is like a breeze that flows past you and it’s up to you if want to hold on it or forget.

In the same way when I was 14, this power of writing struck me. This breeze wanted to manifest in me as a journalism piece that leads to change. I had never really thought that I wanted to be a journalist before that breeze hit me while I was on my way to school.

After a lot of chaos and pain, I realized to write or not to write was never the question. It was always within me and I choose not to ignore it.

Writing is like an antibiotic or a remedy. If you take it in proper doses it has the potential to cure every form of imaginary illness. I say imaginary because most of our illnesses are so. They are just manifestations of the thoughts that continuously keep running in our mind. It is a balm for the troubled soul. Name an imaginary disease and there is no way that a bit of reading and writing cannot cure.

Writing lets you vent out negative emotions and make them into positive ones.  It helps us look at the same set of problems from a different angle which makes the confusion clearer.

Just like any other art, writing essentially is a form of expression. It is a way to escape from the harsh realities of life. By writing something that you want in future can help expedite the process. In my teens, I used to write a lot of stupid things. I still do. After a few years, during a cleaning process, I came across these notes. I went from its first page to the last. Surprisingly, most of the things that I had written down had actually come true.   

The most beautiful part of the written word is that it complements the spoken word. Sometimes, verbal communication is not sufficient to address everything that we want to express and hence here the magic of the written words comes into play. Surprisingly, the written word has more lasting impact on someone than its verbal usage. No matter how much technology progresses, I am hopeful that there will be a time when people will start appreciating the long form and start writing letters.