Why do I write? The answer is: because I have to. I need the therapy looking deep inside provides me. I’m not talking about surface writing. You know, the kind a reporter might type when covering some disaster, a meeting, or a political event that might include both. I write only after communing with some sort of truth that bubbles up from within.
The truth may not make sense to some, but it resonates with me, the one person that actually counts. I can’t get to that truth unless I am totally honest. I can’t be honest until I’ve humbled and opened myself to some “thing” or “force” far greater than myself.
If I rush the process, I fool no one but myself. I need to see myself kneeling before the magnificent and wonderful Oz residing in some firey pool of water deep inside of me. The Oz is all-knowing and filled with nothing but God’s honest truth. The Oz is created by some primordial energy that exists within each of us if we overcome our fear to search and look at it full in the face.
The problem is, Truth may not be to our liking. Particularly, if it reveals our weaknesses, our foibles, and our shortcomings, we might see the man or woman we thought we are, are not who reality tells us we are.
It is when I touch the rock bottom of this Truth that I can gain the most. I leave my ego on the shore and strip naked to take in the vast importance of that single moment. I give up past and future and look deep into the now, feeling more than intellectualizing the joy that honesty brings.
I am a child, wide-eyed and full of wonder at a thought or two I have always had, but had been unable to put into context until then. That new, pure, innocent thought grows and can be directed if I remember the state of mind my beautiful inner being provided.
Writing now becomes an act of remembering what it was I had sought earlier. If I’m lucky, words begin to appear from a source I didn’t know I had within me. I’m astonished when I look at the creation sometimes, and wonder where the hell it came from.
No, not where the “hell” it came from. But, where in “heaven” did it come from!
That’s the place that is inside of me and you, and upon writing, I can go to and enjoy it when I strip all vestiges of being a “know-it-all.” Jealous nay-sayers will swear on a stack of Bibles you can’t enter this Promised Land until you pass away from Earth. I’m saying that it just isn’t true. Ask anyone who writes, anyone who tries to write from the heart. Ask the teenager to write about his or her first broken heart and how the words come almost unbidden. Look at the senior men and women recalling their moments in the sun when something so extraordinary had occurred, it left an indelible mark they can relive and see at a moment’s recall on the keyboard.
All of us can do it. But none but the brave can face it because it hurts. It hurts to let go of what we think we know and accept that the truth, sometimes, is something that must be revealed one solitary written moment after another.
Contoveros 
I like this the first time I saw it!
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I too must write! It’s the way I communicate most easily with myself and others. I started journal writing as a kid, and now blogging. It has always been therapeutic. Blogging feels more exposed, but also revealing revelations has been freeing to me, and maybe even helpful to another?
I know you, and Souldipper, have been for me.
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If we look within, I think most people who love to write discovered an affection for it as a kid. I can see you using a ball point pen, scribbling away at the dining room table as an idea formed and you let it fill a composition book. My first writing instrument was one of those “fountain” pens that you loaded with ink, half of which usually spilled out on a clean white cuffed shirt and smeared several fingers.
Yeah, writing is therapeutic. Reading “revelations” from others like you and Souldipper often gives me permission to be as “freeing” as you tried to be with your musings.
(Musings. Did I just say or actually write “musings?” I might not have felt open enough to use that word had it not been for your writings! Thanks!)
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Excellant! I facilitated support groups for many years.. it kept me focused and honest.. now, like you I write. Because I have to.
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Yes, counselor, there is something theraputic that happens when we go inside to write for someone outside of ourselves, even if the person who needs it the most turns out to be me and you.
Welcome, and good luck on the Blogging Journey!
michael j
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I love this question — I love this answer! Now you have me thinking: why do I write? I want to copy you and say the same thing, “…because I have to…” but I’m not sure it would be so truthful for me. You know, maybe it’s like brushing my teeth. I don’t HAVE to do it, but I do and it’s a habit now — and after I finish, I just feel better, cleaner, ready to function in the world. And I’m smiling without a thought or worry in the world. But if I don’t brush my teeth in the morning, I’m self-conscience and inhibited. I don’t smile and I feel just a bit “off”, maybe a little disgusting — and I mad at myself – know I should have brushed my teeth before leaving the house! It just ruins my whole day if I don’t brush/write — I feel inhibited and unrefreshed somehow to start my day.
And maybe in that sense, you’re absolutely right: it’s “because [we] have to…”
Sorry — had to think out loud there to figure it out — great post!
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I just visited your blog and saw your pearly whites. If I had those beautiful choppers, I’d be writing up a storm too.
Yes, I don’t feel “completed” unless I go through a writing process. It’s like forcing myself to be honest and face myself with no excuses for just a moment or two each day or each week. I’m just happy to find something “there” when I go there.
Yeah, it’s kinda like brushing teeth. I feel good and clean afterwards despite any hidden cavities!
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Hahaha! You are soo funny! (and way too kind!)
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At times, the vulnerability of writing from our souls could be likened to walking out onto a city street bare bollocks naked. When I can feel the fire, I can trust it is beyond me.
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Trust. That’s what writing is all about, especially when we share all unafraid.
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I feel there is some inner voice in every one, when we shut the interface and allow the inner voice to link up with the hands, it goes on………
I loved your post.
I have written my first blog yesterday, please have a look when you find time and i feel honored to get a feed back from you….. 🙂
http://pramskite.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/welcome-to-pramskite/
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Pramodh,
Welcome to the world of Blogging. I see you are a college-trained engineer. We need more writers with that kind of background and I look forward to any insights you can give us . . .
michael j
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Thank You….
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