Language and written language are the only real way we have to see inside another person's thoughts and to know what makes another person human. Without writing, we just wouldn't have that kind of access.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Language is handy, but we humans have social and emotional connections that transcend words and are communicated - and understood - without conscious thought.
We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.
I think we have a great deal of mythology around writing. We believe that only a few people can really do it. I wrote a book called 'The Right to Write.' In it, I argued that all of us have the capacity to write. That it's as normal to write as it is to speak.
Writing means sharing. It's part of the human condition to want to share things - thoughts, ideas, opinions.
The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness.
We don't normally think of it as such, but writing is a technology.
Writing requires a great deal of skill, just like painting does. People don't want to learn those skills.
We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That's why we paint, that's why we dare to love someone - because we have the impulse to explain who we are.
Writing is so entwined with my being that I can't imagine a life without it.
Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.