Why Write?

How writing became my own personal therapy

I don’t remember when I fell in love with writing. It was probably when I was a child, because I don’t remember ever not enjoying it.

We didn’t write much at school. Well, we did. But not much I’d consider quality, analytical writing. Some exam questions required short answers, but not many essays as far as I remember.

I first wrote a lot when I was preparing for my government scholarship examination as I was coming up to Grade 12. I was taking writing lessons, both in English and Thai. And that was probably the first time I was tasked with writing page-long essays that argued a certain point, that provided a balanced treatment of a subject.

And I was good at it.

My skill in essay writing continued to be honed over two years of A-Levels and four years of university. I didn’t always get A’s, but I was usually pretty happy with the result: they were solid, analytical pieces concisely written and persuasively argued.

I enjoyed writing. And because I was good at it, I enjoyed it even more.

This was all academic writing, and I really didn’t write much, if at all, for leisure. I dabbled in fiction writing in high school, starting a couple of novels that until today remain unfinished.

My first leisure writing during this time in university was probably my black book diary. I call it “leisure,” but in actual fact it was pretty serious—you could say my life depended on it.

I had fallen hopelessly depressed in early 2010 and I was scrambling for ways to cope, and someone I was close to and respected a lot recommended journaling. So I bought a black hard-cover Moleskin and started doing just that. Each day I’d write about what I had been up to, how I felt.

My depression was severe enough that I didn’t really have the self-discipline to keep up with the practice daily, and over the years I would fall in and out of the habit.

In one of my final bouts of depression in 2013, I’d revisit that Moleskin and record to-do lists and tick them off at the end of the day (I found this helped give me a sense of achievement, a minor daily boost to my self-esteem). I also had a sad-neutral-smiley face system where at the end of each day I’d draw one in the top right corner of the page, selecting from the three options based on how I felt that day.

I have no idea to what extent this helped me cope, as I certainly wasn’t coping very well. But I’m glad that I did this, as I now have first-hand record of the inner contents of my mind in the depths of depression.

Convinced that writing was as good a coping mechanism as any, I began blogging in November 2013 on Living Time. The name of the blog reflected how I felt about life, that it was about living, being active, experiencing every moment.

At that time, writing was about the only activity I still enjoyed doing. If you’ve experienced depression in any shape or form, you know that loss of enjoyment in what were once pleasurable activities is one symptom of it. And that’s what’d happened to me.

But not writing. When I sat down to write and became engrossed in a post, the world would fade away and it would just be me, my thoughts, and words flowing from my fingertips. It gave me a deep sense of enjoyment. One that dissipated as soon as I stopped writing and hit “Publish,” but it was good while it lasted.

Apart from the enjoyment, I also wanted to blog because I wanted to produce something. When you’re depressed, you feel valueless, you feel that you contribute nothing of note to the world. And I deeply believed that seeing my blog posts afterwards would give me a sense that I was adding value to the world, that I was contributing, that I’d made something and was therefore not worthless. And hopefully, that feeling would help edge me back towards normality.

Again, I have no idea to what extent blogging helped bring me back to me. But I enjoyed the endeavour enough that I persisted over the years. I wasn’t always consistent, but I kept at it. And my blogs grew in number. From one to two, then three, then four, until now I have more than I can ever keep updated. Not unless I became a full-time writer (working on it) and somehow got remunerated for my blogs (something for the future).

Writing, for me, is a deeply introspective endeavour. As I finish each sentence, I dive into the inner recesses of my mind for what would follow. In stark contrast to when writing my school and university essays, my blogs are a messy, spontaneous activity. I never plan. I just have an idea, sit down, and start writing. (That’s what I’m doing right now.)

Writing is a time when I am utterly alone with my thoughts. No matter where I am. I could be in my home, my partner fluttering about his business. I could be in a crowded cafe, amidst the chattering noise and bustle. It doesn’t matter.

Writing takes me inside myself, but also—ironically—outside myself. Writing about my thoughts forces me to look at them from an external viewpoint, to take as objective a perspective as possible. A step back from the intricate workings of my mind that so often suck me in and put blinders over me. Writing, by forcing me to commit my thoughts to paper, gives me respite, untangles me from the inner webs of my mind.

Because of all this, I find writing an intensely rewarding activity.

Four years ago, I was traveling in Japan when I stumbled across this beauty in a bookstore:

As you know, I’d journaled before as an aid to cope with depression. When I came across this five-year diary, I was in perfect mental health. So it was out of curiousity more than anything that I picked it up and brought it home with me.¹ I wanted to record my daily activities for posterity, to see how my thoughts and I evolved over the years, also just to find out whether I’d be able to keep up with it.

So, day after day, I write in tiny letters in the tiny space allocated to one day out of 1,826 (don’t forget that leap year). Occasionally, I forget a day or two, and then I have to rack my brains to recollect my activities. But most of the time I’ve been pretty good and written in it daily.

Each day, I write in that tiny space, and read all the entries of the same day from previous years. It’s a most rewarding experience. Not only do I get to travel back in time and revisit days that would otherwise have been lost to posterity, but also I get to reflect at the end of my day and discover what really matters.

Every day, all of us go through ups and downs and encounter myriad minor frustrations. So, for me at least, it’s a great practice to sit down, reflect, and realise that most of it was fluff, that at the end of it all what I’d most likely remember four, ten years from then would be the good things that happened, and not the bad. (Not that I don’t record the bad moments, there are plenty of those in there.)

And now I’m in my fifth year. In ten months, I’m going to run out of pages to write in, and most definitely I’m going to buy a new one.

Here we are. Everything you’ve read up to this very word is why I write. Of all the activities I’ve ever done in my life, writing is the most rewarding. That’s why I’m here right now, writing to all of you.

Do you write? Why/why not?

Let us know in the comments. Or simply reply to this email.

Until next Friday… Stay cool, stay safe, stay thoughtful,

Val

1. After having paid for it, of course.