Notes on Writing and Identity (Part 2)

Why do we write? Why does it matter? And to whom? Keep reading, then see today’s writing prompt at the bottom of this post.

This past weekend I celebrated one of my ‘milestone birthdays’ and it put me in a weird pensive state, as such birthdays often do. It was also one of the many times in my life that I questioned my own identity as a writer, as I’m sure many of you have done at some point too. 

Questions like the following kept creeping up: Why am I writing what I’m writing? Who’s even reading it anyway? What value does my writing have, and who ultimately gets to determine that, how, and why? 

[I know, it sounds like I was having an existential crisis, but honestly, when you’ve been writing for a long time such questions become par for the course. Not to mention the fact that the world right now seems bleak and overwhelming. And while I know that writing about everything will prove therapeutic and useful in many regards in the long run, it’s hard to feel (at least right now) like anything will ever be able to truly heal what ails us before we destroy ourselves, including the act of writing. But that’s probably not the point of writing. Is it? Maybe it should be…] 

Well, eventually I realized that there are no finite answers to those questions I was asking myself (see above) because as a writer my identity will continue to evolve to some extent, in direct relation to the identities of the people in the world in which I live, as all writing seems to be tied to what other people do and care about and write about in the real world and nothing in the real world is finite. And that made me realize that writing for its own sake is perhaps more important than anything else, perhaps even more important than the final product of what is written, polished, published, and shared, if there ever truly is a ‘final product’ when it comes to the written word. Yet at the same time, the writing we encounter and consume (that writing that’s polished, published, and shared) is just as important, if not more so, as that writing also shapes us and will influence who we are and what we write. And so the reading-writing cycle goes with no true ‘final products.’  

There is nothing more important and valuable to the human condition than owning and nurturing the privilege to be able to articulate and express one’s views and feelings and share them with others in order to be an active participant in the world and society in which they find themselves, as that is how one can help shape the real world in which they live, and be an active agent in the world in which they live. Yet we don’t all own that privilege, and many of us will never have our genuine views and feelings encountered or consumed. Why? Well, I could write an entire book about that, and maybe one day I will. But for now, suffice it to say that not everyone’s writing is equally shared or consumed, which has nothing to do with their writing’s inherent or lasting value. In fact, it’s important to remember that we keep uncovering voices and volumes from centuries past that were silenced or forgotten, and that such volumes speak volumes in the present. 

I will likely add to this draft in the future, as I continue to explore this topic. Stay tuned… 

What do you think about this topic?  Leave a comment to join this dialogue, then share this post with others so they can join the dialogue too. 

Read: Notes on Writing and Identity . 

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© All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.

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Today’s Writing Prompt