A Writer Writes About Writing
An utmost unoriginal idea for a personal essay, but worthy of an attempt nonetheless so here we go…
Why do I write? An answer to this question is said perfectly by Zadie Smith in her essay Something to Do from her collection of essays titled Intimations: Six Essays (2020) — in short: writing is something to do. If we really think about it, a lot of the ‘Why I Write’ essays, including this one, at its core is about how writing is something to do to fill our time. Because what else is there to do with time other than to fill it with something?
But of course, it’s not that simple. I personally don’t have the energy to write all the time. In fact there’s moments I can’t write even though I want to. After I’ve put down the pen or closed the text document I find a way back to it despite thinking I might never return. It’s like a form of time travelling, or rather the closest I can get to that. I leave behind who I was when I filled that blank canvas, then I come back to my past as a new person who’s different and somewhat the same. I won’t say that writing makes me a better person. Sometimes it does, but ultimately it’s an old habit of mine that, as the saying goes, dies hard.
I can hear my conservative Muslim mother yelling at me to fill my time with prayer and not writing right now at this very minute. She’s frowning at me and I feel disappointed at myself then angry for the traces of my Muslim guilt that I can’t seem to let go of. I can never really say what I want to say to her. I want to explain that hyper-focusing on my religious practice does the opposite of cleansing my soul and only makes me suffocate, just like how actively thinking about how one is breathing can cause hyperventilation and well, you can guess what happens afterwards. But she’s my mother, so I nod and I pray she never leaves me even if it means I have to deal with her constant nagging at my every move.
The issue is not that I don’t pray, it’s that I’m not doing it enough. There’s always something as you grow older, isn’t there? At least one thing is going to feel like it’s not enough, but I’ve outgrown the need to reach the magical finish line of enough. I can barely see that far to spot it in the distance probably due to my short-sightedness (another something thanks to adulthood), and I’m too tired to reach wherever it is anyways. And what if as God is writing what is meant for me in my life’s story, He has also written as you wish?
A muscle. That’s what writing essentially is to me at the moment, a muscle that needs training and not a God-given talent waiting to be turned on at will. Not only is it a hobby, it’s also a job and career now which takes its toll as surviving under cap*talism does to one’s psyche. It’s lonely and daunting, but also gratifying to align my habit with a purpose, even if it’s not capital-P-u-r-p-o-s-e and is perhaps among the smaller life pursuits. There’s a lot to be done with words: create another world, connect to another soul, scream it into a void, etc. And I intend on exploring as many possibilities as I can.
