Why do I write

I don’t know but I want to explore this question here. Firstly — why do I write here, on Medium, when I know that nobody reads it. Am I hoping that people will read it and will appreciate what I write. And I will have a fan following. Is it for attention and appreciation? I am almost certain that it is not. If it was then I would probably write more sensibly and maybe follow a better structure. Maybe I write here because it is like an adventure. That you throw some seeds out there and you do not know what comes out of it. Very likely it will be nothing but maybe still something. It could be that 2 decades later, whether I am around or not, my daughter (or anybody else who cares for me) accesses this and reads about my thoughts. Maybe she will feel more connected. Maybe she will know me much better from this perspective. The inside of me. The way I think and my mind works. Not with an intention of her learning anything from me. Just for her knowing her father.

I would love to read and understand how my father thought. I would like to read that more than I would want to know how Camus or Bertrand Russel thought. Latter’s thinking I admire the most but would still place my father’s thoughts much higher in terms of importance to me. And I guess it is understandable. I wouldn’t want to call it legacy. It is just showing a side of myself. There is a vulnerability there. Maybe it is that. Maybe that is the main reason. That ‘high’ of feeling vulnerable. Although with low risk. Or it could also be that maybe someone somehow come across this and finds these rough musings helpful. Someone who could relate to it. Highly unlikely but maybe. Thinking about attention — I generally don’t like it. I feel uncomfortable when I get attention. So it must not be that. And logically the scope of getting attention isn’t high anyways. Anyways that was just scratching the surface of why I write here on Medium. Now thinking about why I write. Anyways I don’t write private stuff here. That is private and not for Medium…

I don’t really remember when I started writing my thoughts. Maybe when I was very young. But I really do not remember. All I remember is that I had an ugly handwriting. I know the logical reasons to write thoughts. To refer to later, to be able to think clearly and not just focusing on latest feeling/thought, sitting over thoughts and then go through them to make decisions etc. There are so many reasons for writing. Question is why I do it. I do write for the above logical reasons. But that is only certain things. But writing these 3 paragraphs, as an example, are not for any of the logical reasons mentioned above.

Or maybe it is just to explore myself. Or maybe just a way to not get bored. Or maybe to just to feel productive. But one thing I can say is that I love to read what I have written after a few months. It is quite interesting. And it doesn’t read like it was I who wrote it. Maybe it happens to most people. But at the same time, I would like to clarify that if the same article were somebody else’s musings, I would find them extremely boring I suppose and wonder whether I would be able to even get through the first paragraph. I think the answer is no :)

Maybe it is just the love for writing. Maybe that is the art that I have interest in. And feel good about when I do it. Maybe it is releasing hormones that I crave. Maybe it makes me feel good about myself. Maybe it is the best that I can do in my eyes. Maybe I just cannot think without writing. Maybe it just doesn’t matter why I write as long as I write and be happy about doing it…