The third and final project in the Minor in Writing Gateway Course was an introspective piece called "Why I Write." All semester, we poured ourselves into our projects and we were finally in the finishing stages of our work. And then, as the light at the end of the tunnel was coming into focus, we were hit with the question: why'd you do it? It's one of those questions that is followed with a long, drawn-out silence from the class. Why do we write? And why did we write?

 

The question is simple, yet so deeply complicated. At first I thought that it would be a quick and easy piece of work. 'I understand myself and why I do things,' I thought. 'I write because it makes me feel...um...huh...good? No that's not it. I write because...well...I write cause...damn...I don't know. Why does anyone do anything? Was this all for nothing?!'

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And so it began.

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Throughout my college career, I've had the chance to write about personally meaningful and relevant topics. I knew that this type of writing satisfied me, but I struggled to figure out why. I struggled to identify the personal need or desire that the writing process somehow fulfilled despite all its exhausting, painstaking, and rigorous terror. 

 

Although it was the shortest project in terms of length, "Why I Write" might have required the most careful and intentional introspection. Accurately recognizing your own motivations is difficult and complicated. I was stuck. So I called my brother Matthew, who writes music, to discuss the roots and functions of artistic expression. As you can imagine, we had a very abstract and philosophical conversation. We discussed the basic human elements of emotion, communication, and creativity. After that phone call and some more personal reflection about my process, I came up with an honest answer as to why I write, or at least why I think I write. Turns out I had been writing that whole time without even knowing why I did it. How silly.

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By composing "Why I Write," I came to understand why I had worked as hard as I did all semester. I discovered why I put together this entire ePortfolio. And most importantly, I realized that it wasn't all for nothing (yay!). It was actually to fulfill something very important to me.

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