We all get the mundane and repetitive nature of writing essays on things we don’t care about or what Marx said hundreds of years ago, so much so that we neglect the beauty and power it holds for our mental space. The concept of writing is introduced to us at such a young age; we are exposed to principles, such as grammar, spelling, and expressing our thoughts using text to world connections.
Childhood is characterized by innocence and blissful ignorance, colourful cheer, and maybe some bubbles with a healthy serving of glitter. We play in fields, run around, and we pride ourselves on reaching the end of the monkey bars without falling. Maybe make a business or two from lemonade stands to slime shops, and our proceeds go into our piggy bank to use on a later day for that one thing you literally need so bad you’ll die without it.
At this stage in our lives, we may not have the words to express ourselves and the world around us. I didn’t have the words to tell you that reaching the end of the monkey bars was the least of my worries, and how, in reality, what I was so desperate for was to understand my mind. What I wanted most were those words I didn’t have, and well, this doesn’t fit in a piggy bank.
Although what I did have was paper and a sparkly pen with a cute little pom-pom on top. I would sit for as long as I could and just write. I wrote about my day, my reactions, my feelings, and thoughts. These words developed with me as I got older; they became reflective, passionate, and profound. Taking different forms from broken words and poems to angry scribbles.
In university, writing changed its form. It became a challenge to channel the battleground of emotion into writing when all I had the time to write about consisted of the theorists of the past. Behind the face of every uni paper I have submitted is the glaring pressure, stress for academic validation and the realities of hardship and overcoming barriers. I tried so hard to put my mind on the back burner and focus on school and the new life I was desperate to create. That was until I couldn’t avoid it anymore, and so I went back to the basics; to the time we spent in the field and on the monkey bars, rediscovering the therapeutic side of writing I had become so detached from.
I found that I had never felt more confident in my thoughts and my feelings when they were put on paper, even if I didn’t know what they meant. They were mine, they were real, and finally, they made sense. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach; seeing thoughts and the rawest of emotions on paper won’t solve your problems. The things we write don’t magically appear in front of us like they may in the movies, even if we wish they did.
Rather, writing can serve as a passionate visual to the discombobulated states of our minds. To a place where what Marx said about consumerism is irrelevant, the space we hold for our own frustrations and emotional turmoil takes the cake, so why not write about it! If not for you, do it for the kid learning to express the world we live in.