Why I Write.

As per request of my teach and friend, I am posting this up here. It was an assignment for AP Language. 

When I was younger, I loved writing stories. I liked writing about unicorns and hockey players, penguins and music. I expressed everything I was thinking that day by writing it down. From grade one through grade six, I had a journal at school. We wrote everyday. Most kids didn’t like journals, but I enjoyed that twenty minutes to scribble down my day or my thoughts. I guess I wrote because I had to, but I also wrote because I wanted to.

I believe that writing is important because it allows a person to express what they’re feeling, without telling anyone. Sure, they can show it to someone, but for the moment, its talking it out with oneself. I know I write when I’m confused, I’m a firm believer in Pro/con lists. I write shopping lists and things to remember, I write down birthdays and phone numbers…because simply, my mind can’t contain all of it. My bulletin board is filled with notes reminding me of what to do with my life. Writing is a lot for me, but it can be for others too.

Even with Internet and text messages, I tend to send a lot of emails and snail mail letters. When I want to talk to a friend, I will call them. When I want to express something I don’t know how to say, I write it. Whether I email it or snail mail it depends on how fast I want it there, or how real I want my words to be. When down on paper and put in an envelope, it physically goes to another person. Somehow the method of communication determines a lot. I think I’m slightly outdated though, cause when I take all my time to write a nice letter, I get a text message back from the friend informing me its been received. Funny, eh?

I think writing is important if something is official. Like contracts, promises, and goals. When my parents say something I like and have a feeling they won’t come through with it, I make them write it down, so they can’t take it back. When it’s written, it seems more real. That’s why all laws are written down. Official wills are written, marriage licenses too. Everyone who needs what they say/believe to be remembered and believed want it to be written down.

Back to my writing, cause obviously I don’t write marriage licenses. Now, I write because I am in high school, and my teachers demand it of me. I suppose I could just not write, but my grade would not be too pretty. Even math, you write. Numbers are a part of language. In Canada I would say that I write about three tests a week, but down here I have to say I take tests. I guess the teachers write them, and we do them? Taking them makes sense, but its just new to me. You know its not only in America where writing is important.

The Greeks way back when started writing to keep track of trade and values. Maybe it wasn’t the Greeks, that was back in ninth grade when we studied that. Definitely before the Greeks…but whenever it was, those people started a tradition that the world couldn’t live without today. My life without writing would be horrible, but I couldn’t imagine what the rest of the world would be like. People rely so much on things being written down. The human mind isn’t capable of holding all the information we’re required to. A day at school without writing anything down would kill me. Trying to remember all that I need to do would be useless, and anything I was taught that day, well it would just go in one ear and out the other.

Writing is important, there are so many reasons for why I do it, I can’t totally make a list. Let’s just say that I need writing, without it, my life would be very unstable. Essays and school writing is just a small part of my huge reliance on writing things down, as I’m sure I have elaborated enough above.