Language calculation
Doing a math problem on paper is easier than doing it in our heads. When we are able to write down the numbers and the signs, we can solve complex problems pretty quickly. The same applies to language. When we write down an idea it makes it easier to think through a complicated subject. We all know this is true intuitively. Our journal helps us to clarify our worries, an email with a friend captures a complex conversation in a few sentences.
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Writing down our ideas gives us a chance to craft not only our langauge, but our ideas. We edit thoughts after consideration. Others feel pure and are lifted up. For me, writing promotes clarity. Most importantly, however, it allows me to tap the world of emotions that lies just beyond my day-to-day interactions with people. Emotions are ever-present, always influencing, yet I have difficulty naming and claiming them because I've been taught to suppress and ignore them. Only in moments of instinct due they come rushing out in a way that I can see. Writing is one of those instinctual times. But that has more to do with my cognizance of what is happening than that of others. Writing allows me to understand myself. Others have the advantage of seeing my face, hearing my intonation, noticing my tendancies. So, writing is this almost exclusively personal act done so that I can develop a deepening, more true understanding of life. Simultaneously, it makes that understanding public. It's humble and vainglorious at the same time. In fact, I would say that every time I write, it's due to two things: life has pushed me to the point of response, and the motivation that someone else will see what I have to say and like it. Even though vanity is a deadly sin, it can push progress: personal or otherwise.
What do you mean by: "But that has more to do with my cognizance of what is happening than that of others"?
The emphasis in the sentence is on "my". It's just the point that writing serves as a conversation with myself. It allows me to critique my thoughts, feelings and opinions in a way that I can't do as effectively in silence or even conversation. I think some things are easier for others to see in us than for us to see in ourselves. Writing is like looking into a mirror.
Is the PROCESS of writing like looking in the mirror or is it the OUTCOME, i.e. reading what you wrote? Or is it both?
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