Why I Write

I disapproved of blogs at the time when blogs were a fad, not a norm, failing to see anything in publicly publishing your work except humiliation. I believed then, as I do now, that displaying one's dirty laundry is uncalled for in blogs, as it very often incriminates others. I also believe that writing a blog warrants a certain amount of gall. Far too many bloggers have gall in excess, I'm afraid. Just look at all those blogs whose entries defy description and can only be interpreted symbolically by a mental image of your favorite analgesic. I had no wish to embarrass myself so publicly, after wincing countless times at myriad grammatical errors and various other indiscretions.

However, I have since then appreciated the value of a blog as a medium by which to broadcast one's thoughts with virtually no expense or censorship, and also as a way of making sense of all the thoughts crammed in my head that would otherwise expire, unused and bodiless in the sphere of existence that is the abode of abandoned ideas. My blog has become a form of catharsis for my ever-moody, ever-neurotic self, and quite luckily only a few people know about it. I want to keep the thoughts in this blog hidden from the people who think they know me. I use a pseudonym because, were I to use my real name, other people's preconception of me would distort my words. I do not want to change my words to please other people, and at the same time I want to write with relative freedom. Let the random reader stumble upon this blog, but seldom will I let my classmates, friends, or relatives read this, or let them know that I have written these words. I am reticent to show them these thoughts, because I do not know what they will make of it, and I do not want to come to blows with any of them, physical or otherwise. The fact that I am a private sort of person is one of the other reasons I want my identity to remain unknown; it is also the reason I reveal so little of my personal life in this blog. I think its anonymity reflects the alienation and disillusion that compels me to write, and I want it to remain that way. To quote Joan Didion, from whom I borrowed this title, "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want to what I fear." I write, simply, because.