I Write Because I HAVE TO

I don’t write because I like to do it.

I write because I HAVE TO.

Writing is hard, and it’s mostly thankless. Joan Didion summed it up well in one of her essays:

“Had my credentials been in order, I never would have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”

Creative expression (AKA “art”) is the process in which you give your thoughts and feelings form.

For me, that means turning the abstract into words, like the ones you’re reading now. But that’s just what works for me.

If you study the Mona Lisa, listen to Ride of the Valkyries, or EXAMPLE 3, you can feel at least part of what the artist was trying to express.

You see, most of what troubles us is exaggerated by abstraction. It’s what Seneca meant when he said:

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

How do we size up our worries so that they become some small thing within us, rather than something we are consumed by?

Art.

But art isn’t limited to writing, drawing, painting, or the like. There is only one absolute in turning anything into an art: presence.

I’ve seen Gordon Ramsay butcher a chicken in a manner that was more revelatory than 99% of the books I’ve read.

This was an insight I had after reading about Japanese tea ceremonies, and how seriously tea masters take them.

Sometime last year, I got in bed one night but couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard I tried. For hours I tossed and turned until I gave up around 2 AM.

I got up, walked over to my desk, and did what felt natural: I sat down and wrote for 30 minutes straight, not lifting my pen off the page for more than half a second when it was time to turn the page.

It turns out, I was doing exactly what I needed to do: I was purging myself of worries that were bouncing around my mind aimlessly. In my anxiety, I decided to avoid confronting my worries instead of writing about them.

When I wrote my last word, I didn’t bother reading what I had written: I knew I had created some of my most honest yet beautiful work.

I got back into bed and was asleep within a minute.

So no, I don’t write because I like to do it.

I do like it, but I just got lucky with that.

I write because I HAVE TO.

If you enjoyed this, forward it to a friend, or screenshot your favorite section and share it on social media!

If you were sent this, click here to subscribe.

I'd love to hear what you thought of this week’s newsletter! Reply here with any thoughts.

Also, I’m always on the hunt for new stories, so if you ever come across an article, book, movie, documentary, folktale, YouTube video, Instagram post, etc. that I would find interesting, send it my way! That’s an easy way to make my day.