Writing

Growing up, I never liked writing.

My first memory of doing a critical thinking assignment in the first grade. We had to read a short paragraph or two and we had to answer some extended response questions about it. writing out why we thought the protagonist made the choices that he made in response to whatever event happened in the story.

I remember thinking, very specifically, that the teacher was trying to assess what was going on inside our minds, to see what we thought and why, and that this wasn’t just a regular test.

I had this feeling that depending on how we answered this, certain kinds of answers would be submitted to some kind of a government agency or something and based on some criteria I wasn’t specifially aware of, that answering them deeply was going to result in some kind of unknown negative consequence.

So I answered in the most mundane, surface level way I could manage. I dont’t remember the specifics of the writing passage we were answering about, but the question would have been something to the effect of “Why do you think Frodo volunteered to take the ring to Mordor?” and instead of answering the question fully such as talking about, a sense of duty, righteousness, or any other deeper thought. I answered instead as shallowly as I could, like “He took the ring to Mordor in order to destroy the ring”. Surface-level. Basic. No real depth. And I continued this pattern throughout every English or Writing-related class I had throughout my schooling.
Knowing I could go deeper but refusing implicitly.

I always thought, it didn’t matter. because, we were just being given some material to read and being forced to develop and elaborate on some opinion about it and who cares if I don’t plan on being a writer.

But now that I am older, I realize, that maybe it does matter. Maybe it is important to formulate opinions and elaborate on them in a way that requires some kind of sustained thought, and proof-reading/editing of those thoughts into something coherent.

Especially now, when, most writing and reading happens in the few seconds between when the thought formulates and as fast as your thumbs can type into the comment section or the whatever feed.

Anyway, Now that I am older, I started writing. Poorly, mind you, just to get my thoughts out of my head and on paper. And I must admit, it’s like I can literally feel the space inside my mind get tidier. Like actual pressure releases inside my head, as though the thoughts and words are taking up physical space and that the decluttering is allowing me to move more freely within my own psyche.

It feels so much better after writing something out, instead of just keeping the thoughts inside as though they are some precious thing that shouldn’t exist in the outside world that I truly wonder what I have been missing this entire time.

And more importantly, if it feels this good for the thoughts to be out to me, the writer. What if there is some even greater effect that might befall the reader upon seeing them out there too.