Why So Many People Want To Be Writers

I have just come across this video that I find very interesting to watch:

And my personal opinion is:

I think the key should be trying to reach balance between these moments we need to spend alone reflecting on life. which leads to writing (also reading– love that!–, reading and writing feed each other), and with other moments spent with people in conversation, socialising. At least that is what I try to do. Then there are also poetry and creative writing meetings and open mics where we can share with others and learn from each other. Why do we have so much loneliness and isolation in our current society? Simple, the global capitalist model has killed our time with the too long working hours and the overuse of technologies. Current job requirements and city building plans separate people too much. In countries like the U.S. families live miles away from each other. We, South Europeans, still tend to stick more together with family and friends, which is a preventive medicine to loneliness and isolation.

Published by MOMENTS

73 thoughts on “Why So Many People Want To Be Writers”

  1. Pingback: Why So Many People Want To Be Writers – The Militant Negro™

  4. Reblogged this on Stevie Turner and commented:
    I don’t really agree with most of this video. A lot (not all, of course) of writers are by nature introverted and prefer their own company to socialising . Give me the choice of a noisy party where I have to make small talk all night with people I don’t know and the alternative of a quiet room to write in, and I would definitely choose the latter.

    Yes, we write because we want to be heard and appreciated, but it’s not because we’re lonely. Even if we do manage to write something and put it out there on social media, in reality who is reading it? I’d say it’s usually other authors who feel obliged to be glued to social media all day so that their own voices can be heard. It’s all white noise, as I’ve already said in my previous blog. Everybody’s trying to say something all at the same time. It’s like a room full of people all talking, with nobody listening!

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. Thank you for your reblog and thoughtful comment, Stevie. I guess the nature of each writer is different, depending on the environment one has grown up in, early childhood experiences and personality. I tend to believe that many writers are perhaps more on the introverted side like you, where there is certainly a self-imposed and most wanted inner need to be lonely, to have one’s own space of reflection and creativity. However, many introverted people want and don’t want to be alone at the same time. In fact, many would love to be given the opportunity to speak into a microphone because, as you say, we all want to be heard and appreciated. I am more on the extroverted side (everyone who knows me in person will say I am definitely an extrovert person), but I also feel this strong need to be alone. At times I can become the party queen only because of my love for dancing and in the next hour I do not want to see anybody at all. In fact, my closest friends tend to be more on the introvert side. But leaving aside more introvert or extrovert natures and behaviors, the social environment plays a great role in our lives. Human beings are a gregarious species and the current world tends to isolate, which is especially difficult when we are getting old and lose self-governance.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. Yes I think early childhood experiences do go some way in determining the kind of adult we become. I am an only child and spent a lot of my childhood alone but not lonely. I am happy in my own company, something my gregarious mother could never understand. I had a few friends and was happy with them. To my horror, Mum used to drag kids off the street and bring them into our house to play. What a nightmare! My youngest son was just the same as me. When I used to ask him whether he wanted a schoolfriend to tea, he’d shake his head and tell me that he didn’t want to entertain them!

        Liked by 4 people

  5. I guess writing makes you connect to yourself. Makes you question your beliefs, helps you know your perspective towards life. Atleast it does for me. Even a poet looks for inspiration in his surroundings and writes based on his beliefs. And it’s a good and creative hobby too.
    Beautifully written btw.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  6. So true Marta. I like what you have written here. I live in the US and noticed when I was quite young how families here live quite far apart, many times in different States. I moved to WA from CA with my husband and even though we divorced years ago, I have remained here as I have children and grandchildren. Even so, my children all live in different cities, rarely see each other and I rarely see them. Technology does help to stay in touch but it will never be the same as actually being with them in a physical way. Next year I will be moving with my oldest daughter’s family due to money constraints and life will once again have the meaning of family. It is good that European families still manage to stay connected in such a close way the way they do.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. I do not want to know what would have happened in 2008 and 2009 when the whole of Spain entered the so called economic crisis, where the unemployment rate reached 20% of the population. Every one out of two young people had no job. Families had to stick together. In another country I am sure things would have been much worse, also in Europe, for instance in Germany, a country I know very well. Luckily unemployment has decreased, but jobs tend to be ill-paid and the number of working hours is excessive.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  8. I think 21st-Century technology has turned most of us into writers, no matter how introverted or extroverted we are. Our gregariousness has found an outlet in the ease of sharing via social media. But the virtual contact has ended up making us less likely to spend “in real life” time with each other…

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Thank you, Aweni. Being a foreign language teacher makes me more aware of this correlation. Besides I have always enjoyed reading books especially in bed before going to sleep.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  10. When I was very young my mother said that I used to read for many hours alone. My love of the vehicle known as books fed my mind. Later, when I was in middle school, I listened to T.S. Eliot on a long-playing album in a public library. People have said that art elevates us. When I read great books, I was drawn out of myself and wished to communicate in this heightened language and organized form. When I listened to T.S. I was breathless. It was to replicate the experience he was able to achieve. I have found art in many media. A professor said that reading leads to writing. So, rather than painful solitude, the act of writing simply satisfies a need to exist on that level we are most inspired. If no one discovers us, we accept that as so many artists have. We would love to make our living as writers, but not at the compromise making it a business implies. Of course Socrates would want us to orate (he was probably an extrovert) and the French man would say that something was lost. But, I was writing long before I ever lost a thing.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  11. Also, Marta, you had mentioned that we learn from each other at poetry readings. Sometimes, I can’t stand them. People are so full of themselves. I guess you could say that I learn from that how not to be. I never want to write poems that are self-conscious. It is like going to London and finding the people do not talk about themselves. “It’s rude,” one of them told me. And my poetry is often exactly what I am thinking. How embarrassing! I yearn to write poetry that is selfless. Like I said, T.S. wrote poetry that wasn’t personal. I never once thought of him except as a great writer. But, even he needed Ezra Pound.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Yes, Mario, poetry readings have that too, at some we feel better and at others not so much depending on the people and the group dynamics that arises each time. But it is always about making the best out of each situation and finding out where one feels most comfortable and, yes, learning how and also who not to be. I understand the kind of selflessness you mean with T.S.Eliot’s poems. If you take “The Waste Land” or “Burnt Norton” you basically find beauty of words and deep philosophical concerns about humanity and existence, together with a profound knowledge of countless sources: Greek mythology, the Bible, Shakespeare, Joyce, Dickens, the Georgian poets, French poets like Baudelaire and many other writers, the use of free verse, etc. Eliot’s impersonality is as opposed as the romantic poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge. And you are more on the personal side, yes. But so was Sylvia Plath and I also love her poems. It is just a different approach. I understand it is often embarrassing to write about what one has experienced first hand and sharing it with others. But is it not a human need? After all it is what we know best because we have either experienced those things personally or almost through people that are close to us. Even T.S.Eliot’s selfless dettachment hides a personal implication of what he experienced during his lifetime: consequences of II World War, migrating to England, etc. In addition, we should not forget the therapeutic function of writing on any human being and that means listening straight to your heart’s dictations. I am still very fond of your writing and miss more of it to be honest.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. Even Sylvia did not feel personal because of her ability to make the denotation and connotation of all her words equally relevant, such that her poetry were like 3-dimensional chess games. Thus, her technical skill was so profound that she distanced her from say a grieving spouse. She tied, perhaps, rightfully all problems to men. And her ability to say that in so many ways often hidden to the superficial reader speaks too of her ability. It was like she was using language to make an irrefutable argument. And her thesis was evident in every every leaf, duck, and fabric of life.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Derrida did that? I am impressed. No wonder I like his work so much. Sometimes, the parts explain the whole, or at least in her case, you see what a genius she was. She rises from mere grievant to social scientist. Her lack of emotion is surgical. Oddly, you think of suicidals as sick. But, her mind was without flaw. Bartleby the Scrivener had it right when he simply refused to participate. Capitalism needs is workers.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. You’re very welcome. Love your blog. I am looking at your art and writing, poems… right now. Thank you for your kind words, too. Love this: ” See you on the other side of creativiy”!

      Like

      Reply

  13. This is fantastic and speaks such tremendous truth to me. When I reflect back on why I write, it is to be heard. As a child, as a husband, as a father, in my profession I allowed my day-to-day presence be defined by what others expected, and thus undermined my own relationship with both myself and others and as a consequence had have felt intense loneliness throughout my life to the point of depression and even fantasies of suicide. But because I didn’t have the language to express these feelings verbally or the environment where I felt safe doing so, my isolation became more powerful and writing become the salve. While I am grateful for my love of writing, I would be more grateful for the love of close friends who hear me, who fill my life with a soul affirming presence. Wonderful share.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  14. Pingback: Why So Many People Want To Be Writers | Go Dog Go Café

  15. Also! I think your comments are perfect. In the USA we have abandoned community for the sanctimonious places of politicized churches and divisive politics plus narcissistic, disconnected on-line “realities”. I would love to transplant myself to the Southern European culture you describe! My experience with dear friends from France was that they were inclusive and loving in ways I hadn’t experienced in my American communities.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Thank you for your thoughtful comments, S.Francis. I am so glad writing has become your salve when you felt/feel? depressed. Expressing ourselves through writing or any other art is essential and should never be undermined. I couldn’t live without creativity and dislike monotonous tasks. But well that is perhaps because I am the daughter of an artist. As for the Southern European culture not everything is so ideal. I think we are copying some of the U.S. mistakes, for instance, city planning with big stores fostering car abuse, creating more competition instead of cooperation, ill-paid jobs with excessive working hours, etc. But this is a thing happening at a global scale. Well, we have to do our best and swim countercurrent. I have always tried to do that as much as possible. Just let’s keep doing it!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Exactly! Just keep swimming one could say. But your countercurrent View feels more alive than living for things or box stores or cars. Creativity is the balance to a society mired in greed, perhaps it is not a shout back at the pigs ruling the world, but it certainly is the harmony that can sing in the melodies nature and love expose.

        Liked by 1 person

  16. I can only speak for myself, and yes, I write, I blog, to keep away from isolation. I was raised with the ethic that living on one’s own is strength, and yes, to some extent, no one should be a drain on others. Emotionally, though, it has been far more life-affirming for me to be well-connected with others, as I am on Word Press and on social media.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Sheldonk, I don’t know anymore what I was saying. I am sorry. This last post of mine is attracting a lot of people and it is being a bit hard for me to attend every person and comment. 😱 Also, I have already been looking at some of your posts and commenting on them. Now I am a follower of your blog too and so we can keep in touch.😊

      Like

      Reply

  22. The collage you found so appealing
    Was done early on,when I first started,it happened quite by accident
    Because the picture on the other side was the one I wanted some how I turned the picture over and I found a whole other image……..I don’t usually find the meaning why in my artwork I just know that each collage is a piece of me

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Thank you for your clarification. People say I always try to find meanings as deep and hidden as possible in any literary/artistic expression. Anyway, yours is a wonderful collage. I really like it.

      Like

      Reply

      1. That’s art is for……its great you expressed what that image meant to you….I was over the moon that you took time to tell me……That’s what art is for…….thank you for your support and encouragement
        Sheldon

        Liked by 1 person

  23. You identify some of the factors in modern society contributing to loneliness and isolation. But loneliness is a feature of the human condition — something mankind has had to cope with since time immemorial. It can give rise to depression or can be an opportunity for creativity and spiritual renewal. ❤

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Anna. Loneliness has always been and will always be part of our human condition as opposed to socialising and living in community., As you said, loneliness is for good and for bad. It is just that the current society urgently needs to avoid an excessive imbalance between unwanted loneliness and living in the community.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  24. Marta this is a Wonderful Post. Actually I came here when I saw you are reading my posts and have been putting only your likes. I was not getting your comments to the posts, your thoughts and feedback. I would not tell this to everyone who visit me. But I am excited to express after reading this Post of yours.
    The video is amazing. It speaks of the true facts of being a writer, reader, listener and speaker and so on…. Your point of this modern society that has formed is making people live apart instead of the facilities, amenities, social media and so on… As if Loneliness has been the only solution. It is there where the writer emerges. It is always so, that the writer needs the listener, reader and one who produces the sound of his writing. May be at least there the loneliness ends for a while.
    More could be written on this subject. But I feel I realised the fact about this a little earlier. So when I read a post of bloggers, if I like it, I read it thoroughly again and make it a point to comment on that sincerely what I feel. Mostly that will be encouraging to the writer.
    Marta I congratulate you on bringing this topic for discussion and sharing that incredible video.
    Thanks
    🎶🎼🌷
    Shiva
    XxxX

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you, Shiva. I never thought this post would generate such great reflections among so many people. I just took this video from another post, a totally different one, from one of my followers. Since that video was already done and uploaded by someone else on youtube I thought it was fair to use it for my post. As the issue to just putting likes on some of your posts I understand a thorough comment is always much more appreciated. We all love this. I will surely get to do this again, but I just need the time, Shiva. Be well and, again, thank you so much for your honesty and appreciations.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  25. Marta it surprises, it happens to surprise, surprisingly it is so or/and some posts are taken to be a surprise. When people are shaken by some subjects they tend to share by their heart. This is what happens.
    Thanks for taking my comment on the comments issue in good sportive spirits.
    Wishing a Great Weekend
    🎼🌷💞

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a reply to sbailey Cancel reply