Why we write.

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.
George Orwell, Why I Write

I got bitten by the writing bug when I was in primary school. Always an avid reader, my imagination was only limited by the amount of paper I had to write on. I always liked to read what other people wrote, and I liked to write. Like many kids, I wasn't particularly confident with sharing what I wrote. Even at a young age, I found that most of the things I wrote were mundane, superficial and didn't have much thought. In fact, a few months ago I found the journal entries I wrote when I was in Grade 4 (I got my "pen license" then, so I knew exactly which year it was from); and the entries were about the typical things a kid did: play games, watch TV, play with friends.

I've kept two diaries over the years -- Grade 6 and Year 7, if my memory is correct. I don't know why I started them. I found myself skipping weeks at a time because I either had no time to write, or because the same thing happened every day. Diaries were trendy at the time, yet I could never figure how out how someone could catalogue their lives with something different every day. I stopped writing journal entries when I reached Year 8, by which time I had decided that there was nothing more that I could write about myself. Several times I've felt tempted to jump onto the web-log (i.e. "blog") bandwagon, but again I felt discouraged by how superficial it had to be to gain readership -- the only time I felt inspired to write was when I had a colossal shitstorm to get out of my system, and those were few and far in between. I hate ranting.

It was in Year 11 and 12 that I started to get back into writing, in some form of seriousness. I wrote stories, and poems -- especially the poems. Seems that every depressed individual has to go through a phase of poetry writing. I spent a lot of time alone in those years, going through my mind the thoughts and feelings I had, trying to make sense of myself and the world around me. In 2003, I wrote a short story -- phenomenal, considering we were in a time when writing stories was the last thing on our minds. I wanted to think about where I stood in relation to my peers; for some reason I wanted to pause everything at that moment and compress everything that happened in half a year into one day. The result was a short story, titled "Blossoms in the Wind".

I felt depleted when I finished the story. I supposed most people would feel some sense of accomplishment, but to me the ending was exactly that: an ending. I still feel that sensation when I write stories today, that no story I write comes with a feeling of accomplishment, only the anticlimactic and melancholic shock of finishing. This was, however, a time of building and re-building relationships with my peers. I sent off a few copies to my friends, and to a few people who weren't close friends. News of it spread pretty quickly, which was surprising to me because I had always seen myself as the background person. People actually wanted to read my stuff?

A few weeks later, I received a message from Levi, one of my friends in another class. Back then we didn't know that much about each other; we had only been in one class together the previous year, but I had him on my contact list. He kept a sporadic journal himself, and he had written an entry after a particular life skills session at school about depression. The entry he wrote was a short story, partially in response to my story, in which he described everything that happened to him that day. It included one crucial line:

"Do you think David's depressed?"

What shocked me was that it took someone else's story, and walking past an A2 poster about depression, before I realised what it was that I was experiencing. And that hurt.

That was quickly swept away by another development. Not only had my story presented a stark perspective on myself in relation to the rest of the students, it had sown the seeds of a new way to approach the rigors of surviving through school.

The teacher came around soon afterwards. “So, which scene are you three doing?” she asked.

"Them two, Miss,” answered David. “I’m not with them.”

It was subtle, but it was something Levi, myself and several others in our circle picked up. For years, we grew up with the notion of belonging, of trying to be "with" someone or a group of someones. From that point onwards, we recognised and ventured down a path of self-respect and individuality, of soul-searching and constant reflection. Peer pressure was a thing of the past to us. It was no longer about being with people. It was not being with people, and being proud of it.

But the stronger point was how this evolution of thinking came to be: it was because I decided to put my thoughts onto paper and share it. That was when I felt something I had never felt before: power. Someone read my writing, and from it, something happened. Something unforgettable; something irreversible. If I could achieve this through one short story, what else could I achieve with this new power?

My writing has been sporadic over the years, though my ambition to become a writer has stayed in the back of my mind. In a period of transition from being a student to becoming a teacher, I have come across the notion of writing to reflect -- to learn -- once again, through the lecturers who have taught me at university. "Autobiographical inquiry" was how Graham Parr described it in his book, Writing=Learning. Funny enough, the other inspiration for documenting this transition was from an entirely different perspective: Lim Yo-Hwan, otherwise known as SlayerS_'Boxer', a legend of StarCraft and e-sports in South Korea, in his autobiography about growing up under the typical Asian expectations of pride, study and money, and how he came about to decide his own path. Somehow, this timely combination of critical reflection and a nostalgic pastime of mine came together to inspire me to begin my own discourse. I once again ask myself, what more can I achieve with my writing?

And so I look back, and I write.