Hate of Writing

I like writing as much as I hate writing. Then what’s the point of writing. Maybe I need to find my focus. My genre. My message. My brand. I hate that word. Brand. Seems that everyone nowadays is talking about his brand. But doesn’t having a brand mean that you get stuck within that brand and you cannot diverge to any other facet of yourself because it’s not what your readers expect?

I ask myself do I have something to teach, to spare wisdom that will spark someone to embrace her true self or go on a self-discovery voyage? That is a difficult question. Why did I start writing? What was the purpose of all of it?

To some extent, I needed a creative outlet from my mundane day job. Being a Data Analyst slash Process Specialist is not very creative. It’s very analytical but not creative where I can go and have fun. Build worlds that do not need to make sense or be real. I get to have fun with words. Pretty much that’s the game.

So here I go from the dull and fixed life of data, a language in its own right, to a language of words. An outpour of random words, of unstructured thoughts, of limitless possibilities. Change one word in a sentence and change its entire tone. I can go from anger to happiness by simply replacing a verb, an adjective, an adverb. The mouth can be closed or open. A character can be amused or saddened. One word launches many possibilities.

“As much as I love writing at the same time I hate it.” And that bothered me for the longest time. That impulse of hate. Why the dread? I think I finally figured it out. Because I lacked direction. What am I trying to say? What is my voice? I mean that is what everyone asks, don’t they? Your writing has to have direction, purpose, some lesson. I realized I don’t have a lesson to teach. An aimless wanderer. I have moments of clarity and need to write. To express a thought or a feeling. The disjointed stories of mere flashes of life. To write without the parameters of the writing rules.

It saddens me to some degree that it’s all that I can conjure. So what is a writer? Who is a writer? Does writing automatically allow me to label myself as a writer? Every blog, book, self-help scriptures shout ‘Yes’, but I haven’t moved an inch. Same as at the start. Lost. But, at this moment, in this particular instance, I am deciding to break this detrimental cycle of not being defined. Here I am, lost but that’s okay. I am okay with that. Let my brand be that: being lost, undefined, scraps of paper everywhere, the chaos of thoughts. Let me be human without answers but with a quest to keep on moving forward and learning. Let me live that purpose to rejuvenate my lifeless self to go on. To breathe another day.