The Joy of Writing About Nothing in Particular

Language was invented for one reason, boys — to woo women — and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do.

 - John Keating. Dead Poets Society.

I first heard these lines when I was 19 years old. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon and after a heavy lunch, I was lying on my bed with this seminal piece of modern film playing on my laptop. As a generally impressionable young man who naively believed everything he read and saw(to be honest, I’m still guilty of this), I was left deeply impacted by these lines and the apparent depth of their wisdom. 

I was convinced that the point of all writing, of prose, poetry, and spoken verse to impress and inspire. Going forward merely talking will not do, I must move people with all that I say. I held long-standing visions of aping Antony with my voice, holding the sway of entire crowds. I dreamt of moving generations with my writing in the ways of the great Russians of yesteryears. 

I managed to achieve neither but rather came across as an annoying and insufferable little prick. 

My early failures with language had left me disillusioned. I was convinced that I had no natural talent for the art and no woman would ever have the cruel misfortune of being wooed by me. 

And, in the depths of the pandemic, I started this blog. True to its name, I wrote for the first time with no goal, intention, or purpose. No crowds to move or inspire, no women to court, and no lessons to communicate. I started writing for the hell of it, on subjects ranging from the absurd to the utterly ridiculous. 

I loved every bit of it.

The thing is, what I have come to realize over these past few years is that writing is deeply personal. At least the sort of writing that I enjoyed and cared for. It wasn't an exercise in so much of communicating my thoughts as merely expressing them, and that too with utter indifference to how it was received by my dear readers.

One would call me a hypocrite perhaps, 

Why write on a blog, a public platform when you don't write for others and don't care about how your work is received?

A fair question. And honestly, I don't think I have a satisfactory answer for it. 

Perhaps I write publicly to hold myself accountable. A blog needs maintenance, maintenance takes discipline; a nasty beast all writers must conquer. It also challenges me to be true to myself. 

If I can't stand by the nonsense I put on paper in front of the public eye, do I even believe in it myself?

So I treat this blog like a personal experiment.

Sort of like an experiment with my truth, somewhat similar to one a malnourished and balding lawyer with John Lennon glasses tried about a century ago; but whilst being far more inconsequential to the world at large and with much smaller sacrifices demanded.

Over this experiment, I have rediscovered my joy for prose. Like a lightning rod, it has helped me channel all of the nervous neurons firing in my mind. To put into words and thus achieve some level of tangibility over my erratic thoughts. 

It’s still an utterly useless exercise, however. 

I struggle to write essays of worth and merit because they demand structure of thought and clarity of flow, both of which make writing boring and dolorous for me. 

Fiction, I abhor it even more because my plastic mind constantly keeps on changing the plot, at a rate far quicker than I can put words on paper. 

Any attempt at writing fiction leaves me drained and frustrated. The content that is finally born is so far inferior to the vision I had, that I promptly delete the Word Doc, slam my computer shut, and don't even think of writing for another month.

Writing like this however, letting my meandering thoughts flow like wine out of a broken cask, my language as outlandish, flamboyant, and flowery as I want it is pure bliss. It's an act so cathartic and rejuvenating that one random writing session leaves me with enough energy to go on for at least another week with the cruel absurdities of life.

I still struggle dear reader. 

A lot of what I write fails to make it to the pages of this blog. I still shy away from my own thoughts and tend to tone down and hold back with the more fantastical and somewhat questionable parts of my mind. Some things, I still lack the courage to put on paper.

But I digress. The point of this blog, like most of my blogs, is that it has no point at all. But writing it has filled me with a tremendous sense of joy and accomplishment. I have attained a sense of flow that few other activities have offered me in my life.

So yeah, I write. No longer to put any sort of message across but for the hell of it. I care not for the outcomes of my words, just the act of putting them on paper is reward enough. 

So, dear Mr. Keating, I reject your hypothesis. 

Language was not created to woo women, far from it. Language was created to woo thy soul. Its role in courtship is but a mere byproduct.