Windows

Ah, yes.  I've hit the one-week deadline, and, sadly, I really have nothing to say.  I guess that means it's time to ramble mindlessly for a few paragraphs in order to meet my blog quota.  Feel free to stop reading now.  Seriously.

Anyway, sometimes, I wonder why I write.  I'm very passionate about my writing, so I suppose that should be reason enough...  But, for the sake of continuing this entry for more than five sentence, let's explore a little further.

Most obviously, I write to express myself.  I'm not terribly outspoken or opinionated, and I tend to internalize things.  In my writing, I can capsulize feelings and ideas that normally would have been suppressed.  Why do you think this blog even exists?  Certainly, I could go around screaming my blog ideas in peoples' faces (although I can see some potential awkwardness there), but I imagine that that would be fun for no one--least of all, me.  Beyond blog entries, I often create short stories to explore certain aspects of humanity that I don't see in my everyday life; these don't necessarily include things I'm thinking or feeling, but they are a part of me nonetheless.  The stories help me channel my own feelings--which, as I mentioned previously, are internalized a great deal--into something much more complex.  With the stories, I can escape my own thoughts and take part in an entirely different world--a fleeting moment in another time and place.  It's cathartic, really.

So, I droned on about self-expression for a paragraph now.  Good.  But what else?  I suppose persuasion must play a role in there somewhere.  "Hey guys, read this blog entry and listen to my thoughts and PLEASE DO EVERYTHING I SAY BECAUSE I KNOW BEST."  (That was probably one of my more subtle persuasive arguments.)  So, yes, I use writing to persuade--in varying degrees of ambiguity--and to try to solve the problems that I might normally leave untouched.

There's more to it than that, though.  One of my favorite things about writing is that it helps me capture the small, insignificant moments in life.  It helps me remember the time when my friend and I went for a walk and got caught in a thunderstorm, forcing us to sprint home through the sheets of rain and the flashes of lightning.  It reminds me of the time when we had a power outage at my house, and my family sat together and played board games.  Writing can immortalize all of those little moments: a conversation that lasts all night, a newly-developed relationship, or even just a passing comment to a friend in the hallway.  I love writing about things that can't be captured with a photograph--things that we tend to overlook in comparison to grander events in our lives.  Writing does these things justice.

So, I don't suppose I made any terribly important insights into life with this entry.  I doubt it was even worth your time, really.  It was more of a semi-coherent jumble of thoughts than it was an enlightening view of anything significant.  Fortunately, though, it helped me sort a few things out (although that might not have been particularly apparent while you were reading).  I always feel better after I write, whether or not the results are entirely successful.  So, even though you're probably shrieking with disgust (I imagine that's what your natural reaction would be...) about the distinct lack of quality in this entry, I'm satisified with it.

In short, I'm sorry if you were hoping for something shockingly insightful.  Maybe next time...