Why Write? [Part One]

When you think about it, there are a lot of things you can do with your time. You can do good works like help the poor and work for climate change, you can work overtime at your job to advance up the ladder, you can cook lovely meals for your family, you can travel and see the world, you can volunteer for your favorite political candidates in the hope that they can change the world, you can play with your kids more, you can go on romantic weekends with your significant other, you can join an online dating service and try to find a significant other, you can go to the gym and try and work off that gut that seems to be forming, you can enjoy your favorite films and books, you can try and—on many levels—to be a better citizen of the world.

So why write?

Why take up your valuable time—that, let's face it, could probably be spent more profitably in aid of others or the world or even your own pleasure—to write?

Or wait a sec—what if writing is more important than all those things? Or is it selfish to even ask that question?

I hate that word ‘selfish' when it comes to writing—like it's something you do just for self-satisfaction or to boost your ego.

When we look back to a hundred years ago or five hundred years ago, how do we come to understand the people who lived then, the events that shaped the world then, what it meant to be human then? Well, it's not through looking at the personal good deeds of those who lived, it's looking at the art that was left behind by those who lived. Whether it's Egyptian hieroglyphics, Impressionist paintings, Navajo pottery, or Shakespeare's plays, we come to know a society and its people through their art. And writing is art.

Words reveal our inner lives, words show our shared humanity and words communicate our worlds. I wish I could paint—I'd love to leave behind canvases full of meaning and wildness and my point of view of what I felt... but I don't have the gift. I've tried. I took paints and a brush to the American Impressionist Museum in Giverny [next door to Monet's famous gardens] and sat in the garden and tried to paint. I was working on a pathetic excuse for an iris when the caretaker of the garden came up to me and smiled. "This," he said in French, gesturing to me, "is why I keep this garden. For real artists—the only ones who truly understand." Gulp. Please, please, please, I thought, do not walk around and look at my sketchbook and see what a pathetic excuse for a painter I am. Whew. Close call. He just asked me to come with him and gave me a complimentary poster for gracing the garden with my presence.

So I may not be able to capture the world on canvas, but I think I have a shot at capturing it on paper. And I think by writing I'll be able to comment on and share thoughts about the human condition—our hopes, fears, aspirations, our greed, callousness, possessiveness—because only by sharing our humanity with one another do we have the hope of co-existing on our fragile planet.

Copyright © Diane Lake

06Nov16

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