There are tons of people writing, and writing about writing, and instapoetry became a thing sometime in the last little while and here we all are, ‘expressing myself’ through writing.
Mm-hm.
‘Expressing oneself’. Such a cliche.
Why is writing for that? Why is art for that? I wonder if people can appreciate the idea that sometimes there’s no ‘output’ or ‘outcome’ or recognition or anything like that which is required.
I mean, occasionally, it’s just because.
Art for art’s sake, et al.
Let me expand on this.
My writing is for me, mostly, and for people I don’t know who vibe well with me, and it
Why have I been writing since I was six years old? Why is it part of my daily practice?
Why do I care about writing? Or is it something besides ‘writing,’ and beyond ‘expression.’ It is, I think.
Let’s go into why.
For me, at those early stages, in my adolescence especially, I felt like writing was a kind of home. It was where I could be, just be, honestly and completely, and utterly, and say anything.
It was good for me to have a place like that.
As I got older, I could write more and even send letters. I did send a lot of letters in the 90s. To find out. What was going on, within. Sharing with a recipient in mind helped me get more steady.
To articulate things, while building the practice and writing-endurance, let’s call it, you need. This matters so that later, the right words appear, and through that, then show you things. Specifics, of things about you that become more clear, with time. Practicing in this way, and learning your own best practice, through the process, you can clarify.
Through the clarification, then you can make better choices.
And through choices, which include deliberate motions away from either going outside of the boxes when that’s what’s best for you or taking chances and saying ‘yes’ when you don’t know the outcome, you can see who it is that you are becoming.
A friend in the cojournal project in 2015 had said she read something about that. The question to ask in life is:
Did you become yourself?
I like this.