The Importance of Writing

In further evidence of the serendipity of life, two chance events started me thinking about the importance of writing, and the importance of aspiring to write well.  More specifically, how it applies to me, and more generally how it may apply to others.

Seeking to squeeze that last bit of value from my Netflix subscription, I happened to come across one of Dennis Miller’s many rants in his comedy video, “America 180”:

"Trust me. The hoi polloi are going to be too busy to fix global warming.  They already have a lot on their paper plates. What with Facebooking, and texting, and instagramming, and tweeting…you know, never have lives less lived been more chronicled. If only Lewis and Clark could annotated their days so assiduously".

Several days later, I ran across Barry Ritholtz' article, "After 30,000 posts, Big Picture blogger has figured a few things out": “Writing is a good way to figure out what you think.”

Like two roads diverged into a yellow wood, they each resonated something inside me, and sure enough: only in the writing of it can I begin to understand what I think to be true about it all.

I am not —I think—a particularly meticulous person.  I can lay no claim to being a man-of-letters. I do not read the newspaper from front-to-back, nor digest copious quantities of books each month.  I do not pay particular attention to popular culture or media.  I have been accused of being freeze-dried by my wife for my all-too-frequent lack of recognition, much less actual knowledge, about the current crop of self-important narcissists-of-the-month, as well as a wide swath of other things that do not particularly interest me.  They all qualify in my own mind as trivial noise, best ignored whenever possible.

Professionally, after a very rocky beginning, I have set and accomplished many professional goals. Yet—like many—I am still striving to achieve some modicum of financial security.  I can only hope at this point that my race is well-run. I hope that I am a decent human being.  But there are some who think not, and they will always think not.

To some eyes—I suppose to most—I have no standing to have any valid opinions on much of anything.  And yet, that is not how I perceive myself.  There are things I still need to achieve—and more important—things I need to say before my mundane little existence is up. I strive in some small way to pass on to others things I have learned the hard way.  Since I am not a very talented public speaker, I suppose it is natural that I have gravitated to writing.

I have many unfinished pieces that I cannot bear to destroy outright, yet I sincerely hope they never see the light of day.  Given the obscurity of my own life, that is almost certainly a foregone conclusion.  But there is a great difference between keeping your thoughts and your art private, and opening it up to the attention and scrutiny of the greater outside world.  Yet without exposing your ideas—edited and smoothed, or not—on what basis can you judge the capacity of your own abilities and your own capacity to make some measure of sense of an increasingly complex and tumultuous world?

Most of what we say or write to others is drivel, generally aimed at either being outright entertainment or avoiding revealing to others how we truly feel at any given moment. Discussing the weather or any of the countless other trivial events that make up our lives is a necessary and socially acceptable salve and conflict avoidance technique.

At some level being entertaining is, well…entertainment; if you can get paid for it, good for you.  If not, perhaps you are still fulfilling an important social need, even if it is only your own personal need to be the center of attention.

The lack of self-editing that Dennis Miller seems to be complaining about in his America 180 monologue appears to be generally accurate.  It is evident in almost everyone under the wrong circumstances.   But then, again, I can also say the same about Dennis Miller’s own long history of rants…as others may possibly say about me.

I can only hope that some of us are actively searching for a way to truly figure out what we actually think—and why— whether others approve of our efforts or not.