Why I Write

Repost from October 2nd, 1997

Of course, I steal the title from George Orwell too, but hesitantly. Whenever I think of his essay with the same title, the word “politics” haunts in mind. Although in that essay, politics is merely the “desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after” (Orwell ¶ 9), since I read it, the title has become a writer’s struggle (“no book is genuinely free from political bias,” ¶ 9) and a soldier’s battlefield (“every line of serious work that I have written. . . has been written. . . against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism,” ¶ 10). When Joan Didion steals Orwell’s title, she also treats the question as a serious writer (“Let me tell you one thing about why writers write,” Didion ¶ 19).

I am not a writer, and often I do not write. I type. I thought about using another title “Why I Type,” because it also has the pleasant sound, “i i i,” that Didion likes. At the end, I prefer “write,” because it means more than the mechanical action of hitting keys. In my mind, to write is to communicate one’s thought by marking meaningful symbols on a lasting media. Speaking also communicates, as does body language, but they are constrained by time and space. Carrying our thought, they flash through the air from one’s mind to another and disappear instantly. Only writing lasts, whether on a piece of paper, a stone, or a compact disk. In a Chinese legend, when the saint ChangJie invented the characters, all the holy spirits of universe cried, because he discovered the secret of heaven. Writing breaks the wall that space and time build between two human beings.

When I write, I extend my memory to the future. I often think the fade out of memory is a wall that time builds between today’s me and the future’s me. When I write a letter or an essay, my purpose is to let others know my thought; when I write my diary or class-notes, I want to let my tomorrow’s mind know my today’s thought. Unfortunately, tomorrow’s me never writes to today’s me.

When I write, I complete my thought. I do not need to finish a thought if I do not write it down, but if I do, I have to finish. I can have an unanswered question, but it is meaningful, and it is a complete thought. Although I do not finish every sentence in a diary, a notebook, or a shopping list, a complete thought exists behind everything I write, however small.

When I write, I imagine myself as a composer. A good writing is like a piece of music. It may begin gracefully and ends forcefully, but the beginning and ending usually echo each other. It has peaceful moments, but also dissonant tones to inject excitements. Its terse logic, repeated phrases, or extraordinary imagination pushes the listener’s emotion to one after one climax. And the silence, at the middle of the turbulence, brings the most breathtaking moment of happiness or sadness, fear or courage, pride or shame, hatred or others. All these circle around a central theme, which is heaven’s secret, which is the gift one soul sends to another, which will linger after the music is over.

Thus, I write.

Reference:

Joan Didion. “Why I Write” from In Depth, ed. Klaus, Anderson, Faery. p. 172-177.

George Orwell. “Why I Write” from In Depth, ed. Klaus, Anderson, Faery. p. 552-557.