Why I Write
by Abena Ntoso
Inspired by the eponymous essays by George Orwell and Joan Didion, I am taking the time to explore, express, and rationalize an activity that is ultimately wholly unreasonable. Indeed, it is inconceivable to some that a woman with two children and a full-time teaching job should insist on spending several hours a day spilling her thoughts and ideas onto a page and deliberating over combinations of words. For what? they might ask. How can this possibly make a difference? What's the point of all this? Why are you wasting your time?
Overcoming the tyranny of such questions was one of the many mental roadblocks I have had to cross in order to give myself the time, space and permission to write professionally. So I write this essay partly as a letter to myself, so that I can always explain to myself why I make the choice to write each day and why it matters.
Writing is an act of resilience. It is through writing that I develop a greater awareness of myself and of the world around me. It is through writing that I play with language and ideas, exploring possibilities and experiencing pure freedom. It is through writing that I continually craft a sense of self that is independent of social constructs, preconceived notions, and expectations. It is through writing that I practice using my voice and communicating with a sense of integrity and purpose.
Much of my writing starts with the desire to explore questions and ideas. I don't explore in order to find answers or explanations; I explore in order to engage more deeply and to imagine more creatively. Sometimes it is possible to do research and to understand more fully, but often I never come up with answers, explanations or solutions; it is simply the asking of a question or the willingness to embark on a journey that makes writing interesting and worthwhile. Sometimes writing leads me to discover interesting insights or tidbits of information; more often than not, my explorations lead to more questions, more ideas, and more imaginative and creative possibilities.
Together with drawing and painting, writing pushes me to observe more closely, to notice details about the external world and my internal experiences. We live in an era that prides production over profundity, quantity over quality, efficiency over efficacy. Entering adulthood in such an industrial climate, we gradually learn to ignore the vast majority of stimuli around us, tending to focus only on that which provides an immediate financial or emotional payoff. There is no immediate profit or achievement to be gained from documenting my fascination with the shriveled metallic blue party balloon still hanging from the lowest branch of a pine tree in my neighborhood park. Nor is there any obvious utility in further pondering this deflated remnant of a bygone celebration and recording the ideas, questions, and associations that arise even as it marks a lingering nostalgia at the end of a distinctly peopled joy. Practicing observation and developing insight is time consuming, and it may not meet social standards for productivity, but this practice holds great potential for peace--both inner peace and social peace. Engaging in the literary and visual arts allows me to process observations in a way that leads to peaceful insights and healing.
I realize that at this point in my rudimentary writing career it is way too early for me to arrive at any conclusions about my writing practice; but it is precisely the fact that I am just starting out as a writer that makes it worthwhile to take the time and effort to present my motives in a clear and organized fashion. The reasons one starts out on any journey, profession, or endeavor are often the most enticing motivations; while one may mature and develop new or different motivations along the way, the original reasons are those which are anchored in the exhilaration, desperation, or nostalgia which keeps one going when the colloidal nature of life in a social system makes it difficult to wade through life's challenges each day.
In my published writings, I tend to explore questions rather than deliver main messages. I aim to take an approach that encourages readers to wonder and imagine, rather than judge and agree. I balance inquisitiveness with experimentation, exploring the personal and the political, ideas and craft, the physical world and the imagination.
In 2020, I created a visual map that represents the mental spaces that influence our thoughts and ideas; this map guides me toward exploration in my writing, as I explain in "Memorial Day":
In real life, we flow through our thoughts and actions so rapidly that we rarely take the time to think about where they are taking us. Most conversations and nonfiction writings often reflect our valiant attempts to convince ourselves and others of what we refer to as “truth.” Few of us realize, let alone care to admit, that our stories and language float in an ocean that is always everywhere all at once. What an adventure it can be to acknowledge this and embark on a mental journey!
This ability to wander and explore is the reason why I write poetry and fiction. I write to ponder humanity and nature; I write to probe paradoxes and dilemmas; I write to peek into the universe. I write poetry to expand my thinking, to find wisdom and authenticity; I write poetry to record the beats of a moment or thought, and then to question the music. I like to be mindful of the infinite ocean of natural thinking, and so I write fiction because it is how I allow my mind to play.
Freedom to play with words and language, to traverse past, present and future, to intersect these with dreams and imagination, to clothe our worries in questions, and to don multiple perspectives … this is the freedom we experience when we read and write poetry and fiction. Perhaps in tumultuous times it would be especially wise to consider that this freedom of thought is a blessing that we should not forget about or squander.
One of the ideas I'm curious to explore is how literature and art can help raise collective consciousness and inspire action and positive change around serious social issues or, at the very least, in people's personal lives. Not in an agitprop sort of way, but in a way that gets people thinking critically, deeply, inquisitively, and with open minds about the way we live our lives and the challenges we face as a society. I am interested in creating literature and art that solicits questions and invites people to wonder, or that perhaps acts as a catalyst for further study and conversation and eventually for action--however large or small--that has a positive impact on one's life, community and society: literature and art that awakens people to the existence of possibilities and choices and that empowers people to seek knowledge and understanding and to think for themselves.
As a developing writer, I struggle with the difficulty of going beyond journal writing or "private" writing. Writing for an audience is tedious; the audience becomes important, and one must go beyond one's own standards of practice to accomplish several requirements: achieve an appropriate organization and structure; connect with a reader and engage the reader's imagination; find the right words and the right way of putting them together to authentically represent one's ideas. All of this so that a reader might be able to experience more than the haphazard compilation of tidbits cluttering one's brain; all of this to be able to share the feeling that one is indeed on a journey rather than wandering aimlessly in the desert heat, urban jungle, or tundra of a human mind.
This crafting of communication is very challenging to do, and while I enjoy experimenting with structure, language, themes, and literary elements in my private journal writing, I find it much easier to do so without imposing the requirement that someone must understand my writing and feel moved by it. Nonetheless, this is a challenge that I sometimes give myself with the hope that I can make something meaningful that can also be shared with readers. My writing is undoubtedly worthwhile to me; when I work on developing a piece and submitting it for publication, my hope is that it will also be worthwhile to others.
I write because I love language, and writing for me is a form of play. I love the sounds of words and the music they make when you string them together in interesting combinations. I love the accidental and surprising rhythms and meanings words can produce when I play with their possibilities and their arrangement. For 2021, my new year's resolution was to love myself, my children, and the world so much that I consider my words and actions very deeply and carefully and mindfully, as one would do when writing poetry. I certainly was not able to achieve this in one year, but just setting the intention and recalling it often, makes me more conscious of what I say and how I say it, and it inspires me to strive for the beauty of poetry more often, even in my emails, text messages, and day-to-day conversations with others.
Beauty doesn't necessarily mean that something is pleasing or ideal. Beauty to me simply means that it embodies an aesthetic that somehow perfectly represents an idea. In the words of Walt Whitman, "I am not the poet of goodness only... I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also." I write of beauty, peace, and hope, but I also write poems that bear witness to the anxieties, atrocities, and quiet indignations that are also worthy of our attention. I write to give voice to real issues that I observe, to counteract our tendency to turn away from problems and dismiss them as "the way things are."
Writing is also a form of therapy, and as such it keeps me sane and helps me maintain a healthy and realistic perspective on living. I did not fully understand just how powerful writing can be as a mental health tool until I began to write daily. I deal with depression and anxiety that is at times debilitating, and I often wonder how it's possible that everyone is not always in a state of depression and anxiety. How can one think clearly through the massive chaos and confusion in our world? How can one witness suffering and not feel despair?
Writing does not fix the world, nor does it get rid of confusion or despair, but it does help me sort out thoughts and observations that would otherwise get stuck in my head and eventually cause problems. Putting my words down on a page allows me to validate the existence of my own mind and its powers of observation, imagination, creativity, and insight. For me this is psychologically very therapeutic considering that our human brains are constantly taking in information and trying to figure out what to do with it. Exploring my ideas, thoughts and observations allows me to recognize the existence of my own mind and find the words to express it. When I write, every single word is legitimate, every idea is valid, every observation is relevant. This validation of existence and expression gives me hope, which is a helpful antidote to despair.
Writing also makes me a better person. There is a certain level of generosity, clarity and peacefulness that I am able to achieve through reading and writing literature. Perhaps it is the sense of calm, patience, and critical thinking that is required in order to appreciate literary works; perhaps it is the sacredness of the time I take to capture my own thoughts and give them physicality on a page; perhaps it is the opportunity to examine those thoughts and sometimes even decipher meaning for my life; it may even be related to the sense of escape and rest that allows me to contemplate and operate independent of--yet still connected to--a world that can often be overwhelmingly upsetting, confusing, and frightening. Whatever the reason, literary writing is one of several activities that seem to be fundamental to my psychological and social well-being.
Because I am just starting out as a professional writer, this is uncharted territory for me, and I am discovering as I go, trying to find my own path and what works for me. Am I resilient? I don't know. Is resilience a romantic notion? Are we all simply fragile and vulnerable, and do we all just keep finding ways to save one another and ourselves because the alternative (a human race that slowly dies out because we all gave up) is unbearably tragic? Perhaps. In any case, I set my words afloat on this page as an act of survival, intellectual curiosity, and hope. So save yourself. Don't give up. Write.
April 30, 2023
The Literary Pilgrim blog features nonfiction creative writing on topics, themes, questions and ideas that I explore in my writing. My blog posts focus on exploring and examining topics or themes, providing information, and generating curiosity, questions, inquiry and interest. In each post, I explore questions such as: Why does this matter? What makes it interesting? How can I examine this in my life? How can I explore this in the world? How can we explore this in literature and writing? How can we explore this in art?