Writing about writing

Beloved Butler

Writing and I have a funny relationship.  Writing is how I express myself the best:  I can plan out my words, I can think without the pressure of conversations, and I feel the permanence of my thoughts.  But college has changed my relationship with writing.  Now it is a daunting task that has limitation and a time frame.  I can't always write about what I care most for, and I don't have the time or space to really pour myself onto the page.  

Currently, I'm writing my retrospective essay for University Writing.  It's supposed to be an essay about our experiences over the semester.  We have the option to either write about our own writing experiences or to make a big claim about what writing is.  I chose the latter, because it feels more worthwhile.  

I had a teacher in high school who would force the entire class to write down our thoughts after a discussing a big issue (WEX kids:  What is truth?).  I really appreciated that because it gave me time to make my abstract thoughts concrete enough to potentially share.  But writing down those ideas changed them.  Before putting the pen to paper, my thoughts were just floating around.  I was not attached to the ideas on a personal level, but thought of them as possible solutions to the question at hand.  After taking the time to write down the floating thoughts, they became a part of me.  It was writing fixed them to my soul.  The thoughts were previously quantum particles, and by putting them onto paper I was measuring them and fixing the outcome.  

When I write, the topics become part of who I am.  They become the narrative of my life, and the information I learned by writing them and the claims that were generated will always be fixed in my mind.  The claim I'm making in this essay is that people don't write about what they love, but through writing learn to love a topic.  This makes up for the fact that my agency in writing is so limited at times. Because as much as I hate to write about what writing is, I'm never going to see writing in the same light.  From now on, I will see writing as a way to find new passions.  And that is not such a bad idea to internalize.