About writing

Of course, the audience influences the way and what that one writes. This influence does not come because one tailors one’s message to suit what the audience wants to hear. Instead, one writes with a specific audience in mind and therefore expresses the message one wants that audience to receive. It is a gift one makes thinking about what one likes and wants the receiver to enjoy, rather than a gift which had in mind what the receiver (actually) likes.

Whether the audience listens or understands the message, that’s secondary. Writing, like any other art, is an expression of one’s self. We express ourselves to an Other, not because we want them to listen or understand. In seeing our reflection on what we want to say to the Other, we get to know our self better. One communicates with the Other, and that process helps mostly for self-definition – of ideas, values, or aims.

In writing, one tackles demons, battles, fear, future, past, plays with what’s real and creates a memory which may not be truthful to what happened. Yet, as time leaves us and we forget what happened, we also forget that we forget, and may go on to believe what we wrote down as an accurate description of what happened. Writing is creating life once again. Who is one writing for, that’s the least important question. And misses the point terribly by trying to cage the freedom of a text into a meaning that must have a purpose, utility, be understood by its audience, and God knows what.

No. Most of the times, one writes because one wants to, which is to say, one writes for oneself. And that, like any other activity in life which one decides to pursue just because one wants to do it; not for someone, not for glory, ‘success’ or recognition… but just as something that one does because one feels like it, that: it’s just an act of freedom.