[02]Chasing Sparks.
Why I write and why you should too. Writing for freedom and writing as a metaphor for life.
My love for writing began in primary school, notably in my English and Ndebele story compositions. Having a great command of the language and stories that earned me a star was the norm. To the young me, exploring the English language— obsessively quoting proverbs and similes and reading novels for an expanded diction and synonyms to everyday words—was no big deal but was just what every good student expecting to get good grades did, so I thought. Outside class, I wrote poems, songs and short stories that I shared with friends who cared to read my self-righteous musings. This practice followed me to high school, or rather, plagued me in my teens. Jotting down poetic love letters with World War analogies that rang aloud in the girls' dormitories came quickly. In English class, my stories maintained high claims, while in debate and public speaking, I found a home by writing some of the best, most informative, and hilarious speeches to grace the competitions. Accolades knocked at my door, and I opened it gracefully. But still, to the not-so-young and not-so-old me, it was no big deal. It was play.
Reading Billy Oppenheimer's newsletter, I came across a quote from the work of Amy Krouse Rosenthal. "For anyone," Amy wrote, "trying to discern what to do with their life: PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU PAY ATTENTION TO." It was only when I moved to the United States and started a blog that I felt like I enjoyed writing. Writing in, however, form: lists, journaling and poetry (attempts at frail poetry). Stories moved me the same way I wrote a couple of pages to a former crush on how she made me feel the first time I saw her. (A little game for my single mates.) Yes, it worked: she melted before me. However, I couldn't accept that writing was and is my calling. Why? Societal standards and the life of writers, I presume. But, with every word I wrote and stories I shared, my memory began to recount all the times I did a similar version of the same thing: sit and write. They were sparks painted in my past and present that I acknowledged existed but never paid great attention to. What bothered me the most was that, in some of my writings, I asked the question of how one can find their calling. If Amy were alive, she would have screamed those words into my soul: pay attention to what you pay attention to.
Why I write.
So why do I write, and why should you? Well, firstly, because it can get you girls. If not, what's the point? Honestly, though, I fear not living fully and answering my life's calling. While the question may still exist as to what that calling is, answers, I have learnt, are not found in just sitting and waiting for the calling to announce itself explicitly. No. Answers lie in following those tiny sparks that surface now and again. Sometimes, they linger in our hearts as scary inspirations. They are the curiosities that need liberation from our minds into action. And there lies the fire that would keep waking us every day in the morning.
For the overthinker that I am, journaling is a freeing practice for the mind. Often, we're stuck in our thoughts, running visions of the future, replaying and battling memories from the past so much that our minds become clustered and cease to process the available information. Like a computer, our minds deserve that reboot or refresh. Journaling serves that purpose. Thinking on paper is akin to dividing and conquering in battle. I feel that the mind is presented with a weapon of mass destruction, and the field is levelled when all the thoughts are laid openly in black and white. In some instances, just writing things down is the real solution.
Writing to document.
Above the hopes of publishing my first manuscript and having a successful blog, I always say my future kids will find my life imprinted behind my writings. That is writing to gift, and after reading many great memoirs, I know the value of an authored work cannot be overstated. Sure, pictures and videos can document far better than capturing written records, but still, writing reigns supreme.
Imagine looking back a year from now at a journal entry you made about how your day was and whatever blue tea you were having. We forget, but our documented memories can be magical at times. There's also something magical about looking at how far you've come. Grace abounds in those moments, but we deny ourselves that privilege without them logged down. "You can't connect the dots looking forward," says Bill Gates. "You can only connect them looking backwards. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You must trust in something— your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." In those dots, we connect also lies tiny sparks that attention can be paid to.
Playing the long Game.
In his book Show Your Work, Austin Kleon echoes these sentiments: "The people who get what they're after are very often the ones who just stick around long enough." Not to sound cliche, but we're all writing our life stories. Hence, the saying that life is like a book. In a literal sense, we're not all writers, but there's a metaphorical question: What is your writing? What is that thing that when you look around, you see dots from a young you, that which has sparks flying all around you? What do you pay attention to? What is that voice of God you hear? Therein lies your fire.
Writing our lives is an attempt at living intentionally, listening to the silence and ourselves deeply, doing a little bit of one thing every day mainly for its own sake and less about the external outcomes that lie at the end of accomplishment. It is watching those tiny sparks come together, wherever they converge or diverge, to ignite a fire within, seeing one thing come together day after day, week after week, until you look back in a year or two and say, I built this. Consistency. That's the word.
Writing for freedom.
Shackled by the chains of my self-destructive fears of the future in mind, fears of going at it, fears of acknowledging it and fears of showing it, I find I need to fight. "Emancipation from mental slavery," sings the late Bob Marley, "none but ourselves can free our minds." I write to be free. At least for now, I can finally openly state that I write for fulfilment and freedom through exploring my curiosities.
Whatever your writing is, follow the sparks and let us write our ways to freedom. Together, we can then happily join in a redemption song.
Love the Bill Gates quote. Have heard this concept from others. Another spin on it is seeing the wake behind your boat... You can't see it until you've been through it and lived it. Then you can look back. I write a lot on my own that I don't publish here on Substack. You're inspiring me to do a bit more. 1000 words of summer is upon us with Craft Talk's Substack and I have a plan to give it another shot. Writing 1k words every day about something...
This one echoed! Somewhere in there are words minted not by your brain, but by your soul in a universal language that resonated with mine. Keep on writing and thanks always, for your support!