I must write

All children, it seems, want to be distinct from their parents, and every child, it seems, ends up discovering things embedded deep within themselves that inextricably link them to their parents anyway. Like an unbroken chain of genetic information stretching back to our origins, we carry with us the unmistakable imprint of our ancestry, whether we like it or not.

It makes sense to me then that my father once wrote the simple phrase “I must write”. Writing for me, like my father, is something I have to do. For me, writing is a part of thinking, it’s a way of organising my thoughts and in fact most of my writing never even escapes my own head. I review conversations and events as though they were scenes from a book, revising and refining the experience: good or bad. A character in my own story, I explore my motivations thoroughly and do my best to understand my life itself.

As Anne Morrow Lindbergh once wrote: “I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.” Anne herself is an interesting character, having written some rather controversial stuff in support of the Nazis in the 1940’s. That said, I don’t think her other writing detracts from the sentiment: writing about life is being conscious about life and for me, is as important as living itself.

I love writing, its cathartic and a great way to deal with stress for me. Maybe that’s why I have neglected my blog for three whole years: I’ve been quite happy lately, even with the usual stresses of work.

I’d like to change that. No, I don’t mean I want to become more stressed, I have just decided I would like to do more writing and that means you, gentle reader, are going to see more happening on this here little website. I don’t know why it’s better to write and then publish my thoughts to the world at large. It does seem rather self-centred to me. I have considered making a private journal but for some reason it just doesn’t feel the same. I think the difference is that writing for an audience sharpens the thinking, you focus more on trying to convey a meaning or a feeling, rather than just trying to note down a thought or an idea.

People say there’s no risk to blogging (what a silly term), but that’s not entirely true. Every bit of information you publish about yourself on the Internet is available for all to see, potentially for all time! It’s important that you recognise that your audience includes people who may like you, people who may dislike you and people like intelligence agencies, rifling through all our personal information to unspecified ends.

Anyway, this post marks a conscious effort on my part to write more and post more. I can’t promise any frequency or quality, but I promise I will do my very best.