I write because I love to read. I could spend all day reading. It never gets boring, instead, books are the ways that bring the dead, the past, the present, the world, the future to me.
The more I read, the more I have in my head.
But the human brain will forget information that we don’t use. It is natural and understandable for energy-saving purposes. The way I can keep the information I learned from books is by sharing and using it in daily life. Writing is one of the ways I share and apply the essence, the gist of what I learnt.
Without first understanding and digesting the knowledge, I could not present it in my own way. And through the process of writing, I express an idea or a concept in a different way. It is a form of self-expression that I enjoy. If you are introvert like me, you like to think, and you are not into public speaking and you don’t join a bunch of book clubs or have a group of friends who like to discuss all sorts of books with you, then writing could be your way of expression too.
Writing is an enjoyable process for me. It helps me to reduce the burden of the brain as I brain-dump everything and whatever I think onto the paper. It makes invisible thoughts visible. It allows me to see what I am afraid of, what I am happy about, what my thinking pattern is like. It raises my self-consciousness and self-awareness. It is almost like a spiritual practice.
My writing is far from flawless. There are typos or grammatical mistakes here or there from time to time. Yet, it doesn’t affect my intention to write. And neither should you be affected by minor informalities and abandon the bigger picture and goal. We all want to be perfect but perfection exists only in the ideal world. If I have to wait for the best time to start writing, or when I have the same vocabulary vault as Shakespeare before I write, then I would never write at all.
I do not write for money. I have tried, but it doesn’t work. Writing for money gives me pressure and forces me to write on a certain specific topic which I may not feel like writing. I could be writing 1000 words in under 30 minutes when I don’t write for money vs 1000 words in 3 hours when I do. And the quality of the writing is more or less the same. Well, at least I have tried and found out a way that is not for me.
Nonetheless, the reward often comes unexpectedly. When I write my book review in secondary school, it was published in the student paper and I got $50 book coupon. And when I write and share my thoughts and learnings on medium, monetary returns come — more than I ever imagined. Perhaps that’s why they say if you follow your passion, the money will follow. And the efforts are effortless. Resistance is minimal.
My wish is to continue to write what I think, to share what I learn. It may as well be a record of my growth. How I have become more mature over time. How I have come to understand more about life, money, relationship and the universe over time. This record would be priceless for me. And perhaps the cherry on top is some money for me to buy more books every month. My life would be very blessed then.
