Why do I like to write?

I don't think everyone has the need to write but I do think everyone has the need to express themselves.

Writing is just one way to do it and I seem to do that better than dancing, drawing, painting or playing an instrument.

Writing from time to time is the way I feel most connected to. Like thoughts, timing and actions align in a moment of inspiration.

But just because I feel more in sync with the texts doesn't mean at all that the end result is good. But I think I'm better at writing than painting or dancing.

I feel better expressing myself on paper than on a canvas or dance floor.

But regardless of which "style of expression" we are better at, we all have one thing in common besides the need to do it. The need to share it.

That's why we keep what we write, perhaps to show you and above all to show us what we have lived and what we were feeling at the time.

Somehow we want to encapsulate the expression of that instant and show it. Not necessarily to an audience as big as the size of our ego, but maybe to share it with our future self or family and friends.

In the book "Sapiens", the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari remarks that what differentiates homo sapiens from other animals is the ability to create an imaginary world that can be shared.

An ability that has made it possible for us to spread stories such as religions, laws or bureaucracy. This is what has allowed us to mobilize hundreds to millions of members of the same species in the same direction. This is how the most extraordinary herd that any mammal has ever been able to manage has conquered the Earth.

But the opportunity to share what we express is a double-edged sword, and social networks have shown us this in recent decades.

It's as easy as logging on to Instagram and opening the live feed of one of those people who get to broadcast their life 24 hours a day.

But just because we over-share doesn't mean that this option has to be completely eliminated just because we've already prostituted it.

As always the solution is not in black or white, but in a shade of gray. And we don't need to read history to feel within ourselves that we want to share a moment, an experience or the expression of one of these two things.

Imagine for a moment being in a place on the planet where the sky is so starry. So starry that not even the lack of light in the surroundings or the non-existent pollution are enough to count the points of light of the stars correctly. An instant so magical that it makes you want to say: "Have you seen that sky?".

That kind of experience will not be the same as living it, but writing it down is a way of expressing it and sharing it out of time.

But I don't think the expression responds only to a communal need.

If I were the only human being on Earth right now, I am sure that my body would still ask me to dance, play music, shout or write.

We all feel a fire inside, however small it may be. A fire that we have to extinguish from time to time either with bodily or intellectual expression. A fire that makes us sing and dance in the bathtub, no matter how risky it is to break our hips against the floor.

But no one can deny that even being social beings within a huge collective that follows the same currents and stories, and wanting to be part of these circles, there is something inside that reminds us that we are still individual beings.

Two people can try to write about the same subject, dance to the same music, draw the same landscape or play the same notes but the result will have a different feel in each of them.

This is why I give so much importance to writing. It is my form of expression and only I can write as I do. No better, no worse.

Does it please others more or less? No doubt. But no one can do it as well as me.

I experience exactly the same dancing even if I feel less connected.

Expressiveness is the purest form of individuality and we all need to remember that we are individuals. No matter how many herds we follow.

It must be because we follow an immense collective for those stories we tell ourselves and we want to remind ourselves that we are also individual beings. We want to transmit and leave something behind. Even if only for a few seconds and as a secret between us and the wind.

When we express ourselves we can do it with such a connection between us and that art or craft, that even others can experience a part of what we felt while we were creating it.

The proof is when we put on headphones to listen to that song we love so much. There is something that makes us close our eyes to pay more attention to it.

As if we don't want the other senses to interfere in trying to experience what its creator was expressing.

I have always told myself that at some point I will learn music and start creating it. I want to be a part of it. It's like seeing someone who does it really well conveys to us the desire to do it. Then we try it and we realize that we are who we are and we need there to be some structure and the day-to-day pieces are placed where they need to go to create the best harmony.

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© Emby Lat

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