What It Means To Write...

 The world we perceive, understand, and interact with, has as many interpretations and their understanding as to the people who live on the planet. We see, hear, smell, and feel the fabric of reality around and within us through our dynamic senses. Yet perceiving and interpreting reality into a coherent and cohesive understanding is difficult but not impossible. As such, what we know or believe we know and its further interpretation and communication require discipline, the disciple of writing.

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Writing. It means bringing together chaotic thoughts into a harmonious order, an order whose practice is at first excruciating. It represents being passive in a physical space, letting the mind discover and find the suitable headspace to form something that is worthy. For scholars, and even laymen the practice of writing grounds our numerous ideas, filtering the important and letting them be expressed with clarity and natural flow. 

(If you have just started the journey as I have, fret not, the excruciation is worth it!)

If history is given the opportunity to relate, the introduction of the printing press especially the mechanized version; "The Gutenberg Press" dramatically revolutionized European culture and society during 1400 A.D. The sudden widespread spread of printed works, at first the "Bible" freed the general masses from the then "corrupted church and its clergy" and thereafter, written words in the form of books, posters, and papers - gave unstoppable rise to the  "Golden Age of European Renaissance". 

At present, Internet has dominated the world with ever interactive technology, yet the importance of writing has increased. Caption on photos, subtitles in foreign movies, feed of stories with popular hashtags, and more, all are some of the examples. As such, it is a tool to spread one or more concrete and well-defined idea be it religious, scientific, cultural, marketing, informational, or just some personal opinions. Modern technology may have changed the way we communicate from handwritten letters to the electronic mails "e-mail" or "tweet", still, the essence of writing remains the same despite the transformation of the means or forms.

Yet, writing is tough, it is challenging. There are times when our vocabulary or grammar holds us back when we speak, especially when we sit down to write, something or anything. After mastering a certain degree of vocabulary and grammar, ideas beguiles our mind, and it takes a while, for exploration of the ideas, and pursuing the writing endeavor. For many, the hurdle of writing is to begin, then thereafter stop the "spontaneous overflow" Thus comes in the academic discipline of writing as well as the sweet ecstasy of creative writing 

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In academic writing, we focus on the "theme", the major idea of a piece of writing which are supported or connected by subsequent ideas. It is because we as scholars "need" to demonstrate our knowledge or prove a certain point, we play with "theories" or set of assumptions or experiments of our predecessors that is characterized by chronological, comparison/contrast, or some other features that are niche and unique to the said field of study. Similar to that the creative writing focus is on "world" building, the discovery of "voices", structuring of "forms" and an introduction and conclusion to a "narrative" that resonates with the readers targeted by the author. 

Notes-taking is a very important skill for scholars in a classroom setting. Even veteran journalists in the field take notes perhaps coded on their own special writing. Likewise, writing acts as a memory for many of us who are lacking in "photogenic" memories. Even historic moments from a mundane perspective as exemplified by "Anne Frank: Holocaust Diaries" presents us the crucial necessity of writing. We can go on and on, how important it is. We will only know it for what it is when we start writing, perhaps from something small, a description of our environment, and ourselves; a reflection on self.

At the end of the day, it is a kind of awakening where our consciousness empowers our faculty of thought, speech, and actions that align with our interests, passion, and purpose in life. From simple to-do lists of the day to comprehensive planning for the next decade, writing is a perfect method to make the complexity of living life somewhat simpler and more bountiful as we continue this journey called LIFE.