I’ve ready many different articles through my studies about why we write. Some say that we write to share the human experience, to provoke thought. Some write because they have a story that needs telling. There is no right or wrong answer. It was only after reading several answers from peers that I was forced to ask myself that same question.

It’s so rare that we allow ourselves the permission to be truly honest, nonetheless sit down at the computer, open up a vein and let it bleed. When people refer to writing as an outlet, a release, I am almost envious. Really? Writing feels good to you? After a long day, I don’t want to delve deep down into that place of truth. I want to zone out and watch "Friends" and not think about a damn thing. When I begin to write, I might have one fuzzy concept. Usually it is something I have observed about society, but the image in my mind is a blurry photograph, a caricature. The process of writing means fully coming to terms and understanding it, believing it. Once you chisel that reality out of stone, you can’t choose to be blind to it. Sometimes writing means holding up a mirror to our lives, to ourselves, to the pain and ugly truth. How many people have the balls to do that?

I can count on one hand how many people know the deepest darkest parts of my story. I can count less than that for those who know the things that keep me up at night, the secret struggles that we carry day to day. These are the things that we conceal with smiles, laughs, shadow play, smoke and mirrors. It’s comfortable just to cover it up, hide it away. This is how most of us function in life. Then I realized that was about the most selfish thing that anyone could ever do. You know that sense of isolation that we feel when these thoughts run through our minds? This is the reason why. No one wants to talk about what’s uncomfortable. If they have the self-awareness to be honest with themselves in the first place, then they choose to hide that knowledge away. It may be out of shame, or the belief that surely no one else could understand what they had gone through. Little do they know, there are hundreds and thousands of other people sitting up with the exact same thoughts, the same troubles.

Through writing, I have gotten to meet some of the most genuine people. It’s not easy to write about alcoholism, addiction, parenting insecurities, coming of age, anxiety disorders. We do it so that someone out there will not feel so alone. This is not for us. It is our duty to the readers, and to the world, to be genuine in our struggles. It is a gift that we may not have received ourselves that we wish to pass on to the world.

The thing about writing is that you can’t calculate its impact through shares. It starts with an idea put down on paper, and branches out to those who read it, and then on for eternity. Even if the readers didn’t fully embrace the message, it still got them to think. That thought gets transmitted to everyone they come in contact with through their beliefs, through their actions, through how they treat people.

Imagine if Anne Frank chose not to write. We would not have a crucial snapshot of that point in time of history. We also would not know what that was like for a thirteen year old girl with a mind that continued to grow and thrive and dream and love, hidden away in an attic as the world continued to go on around her. That is what writing gives us. After we are dead and gone, it is our stamp that we leave in this world that says I was here… this happened.