Why Write?

Edmund Spenser: Amoretti LXXV (1595)

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his pray.
"Vain man," said she, "that doest in vain assay.
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name bee wiped out likewise."
"Not so," quod I, "let baser things devise,
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where when as Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."

Like the speaker in Spenser’s sonnet, I’m of the opinion that we write in an attempt to give substance to that which is often fleeting – a memory, an emotion, an insight – we write it down in hopes of preserving it, perhaps of sharing it with someone else.

And yet, I’ve always been hesitant to get serious about writing. I’ve been put off by (1.) the vanity inherent in assuming that someone, anyone, would care enough about what I have to say to wring precious moments from their day to read it and, if I’m completely honest, (2.) my own fear of failure. What if no one reads it? What if I pour my heart and my soul into my essay or poetry or blog and no one chooses to read what I have to say? What if I write that novel and it ends up in the 99¢ bargain bin because it was so insipid, so trite, that no one in the world could stomach it.

I would imagine that it is fear of failure more than any other obstacle that keeps us achieving our dreams. We would blame lack of opportunity or money or time, but if we strip away the rationalization, we are just afraid to fail. And why not? We live in a culture where failure is something to be avoided like the plague. We shield our children from it and should we (or they) encounter it, we quickly seek out someone else to blame lest we have to accept the horrible truth that we tried…and failed. But if we don’t try, does that mean that we have avoided failure or does it simply mean that we have failed to try? And if we never try it’s a certainty that we will never succeed.

And so, here I am. I’m throwing my hat into the overcrowded ring, making an attempt at writing something that is worth reading, trying to make the moments, the thoughts, the insights a little more permanent and perhaps learn a little about living in the process. And while I have no delusions that what I write here will attain the permanency of Spenser’s sonnets, maybe, just maybe, some one will read it and be momentarily renewed.