For anyone who reads (or writes in a) blog, this should be a pretty fundamental question. The funny thing for me is that I have never really considered it. In some quick research, I found surprisingly little out there which relates to the question of ‘WHY’.
The few paltry links I did find relate to the ‘how it feels’ trope, or to the ‘tired, Professional writer perspective of ‘you can’t understand how tough this racket can be…’ line of (self indulgent) thinking.
This is unfortunate, since upon a bit of reflection several things became apparent. You see, I came upon writing (as a hobby) relatively late in life. I had always invested a great deal of time in the more ‘verbal’ arts of discussion, debate, argument, and conversation. Upon reflection, I found that I used these forms of spoken interaction as a means to clarify and resolve my thoughts, ideas, and perspectives.
Writing is different
The great advantage of the spoken arts is in the areas of immediacy, freshness, and interaction. But these aspects of communicating ideas don’t cover the whole game. Writing, intrinsically forces you to have to think a bit more deeply (writing is slower than talking…). When writing, there is a chance to ‘do it right’, instead of to ‘do it first’.
Of course, this is only one of many definitions of what writing is (in a very broad sense), the WHY question is more complex.
We all have lots of anecdotal and colloquial reasons for the things we do. With regard to writing, I have seen (i.e. ‘read’) that it is most often an expression of compulsive behavior…and it may very well be…for some.
In my case, I found that writing is a fundamental tool in developing kills in how to think (better). From taking the time to write (and thus, to talk the time to think about a topic) I could see that this is just as valuable a tool to develop rational thinking as taking 9th grade algebra is (as an emergent aspect of this discipline) to having more structured and consistent thinking processes (in general).
I find that writing is aided by my experience with math…I can almost see the profound value in the old adage of readin’, writin’, arithmetic…
Why Write?
http://jamesrocchi.com/2011/04/why-write
Why Write?
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2007/10/why-write.html
