I Love To Write

Kids hate to write. A writing assignment in school is torture. A two-page paper will take forever, if and when it is started. “What will I write about?” “What will I say?” They lack ideas, and their reluctance to set anything down, compounds the problem. If they don't write they don't learn to write. So their thoughts remain unrefined, even if they have some sensible ideas. Lack of confidence in themselves makes silence or superficiality preferable to the risk the criticism by others who might disagree with them. A blank piece of paper, like silence, is golden.

And, should they choose to write, or when they must, nowadays they have an accomplice. With computers there is a strong temptation to enlarge the font or increase the space between lines. That and plagiarism make it easier to complete the assignment when they get up the will to do so. Or if they have an idea that they want to communicate, they do it over social media with a series of unconnected abbreviations, initials, and sentence fragments. Or perhaps an inane video.

I suspect that when I was young I had the same mindset, though I lacked the electronic devices now available to protect me from thinking. In fact I had teachers who wouldn't accept their students' anxiety and hesitancy. They demanded content. Clearly expressed. And with their support their students learned to write full – and grammatically correct – sentences. They learned to express their ideas in a way that others would understand, even if they disagreed. (I don't always see that now, even in the media. Perhaps clarity, conciseness, and correct grammar are no longer in vogue.)

Our teachers had high expectations of us. They wouldn't accept something from us if the felt we could do better. And by a combination of compliments and criticism they convinced us that we could do better. I recall a teacher who praised something I wrote while telling me how it might be improved. His advice has remained with me since. Teachers like that still exist, but with tenure and parental and administrative pressure, more and more are “going with the flow.” Sad.

I didn't go into writing as a profession, but the lessons I learned stayed with me. Words were my passion, and I didn't need to express them to others. They were mine. I'd write what came to mind, and what I didn't throw out wound up in a drawer for development at some undefined future time when I had the opportunity – or not at all. And the drawers filled. No one saw it but I didn't care.

As the years passed things changed. I did some writing – medical papers (not all lucid but most were), letters to the editor (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Jerusalem Post, and many others), bad poetry for the New England Journal of Medicine, and a variety of other written works – in my spare time. I even edited a community newspaper and had an editing position in a state medical journal. But all of these efforts were those of a dilettante who could fit fun into his schedule. Or when the efforts would advance his standing.

It's different now. I'm retired. Now I can write what I want, and I have the time to do so. And writing, through the years, has helped me to develop the ability to say what I mean, whether succinctly or by the use of prolixity. There's a place for both. I don't think it's the absence of humility that tells me that I write fairly well. I'll never be a great novelist or writer of non-fiction, but I've started emptying the drawers and developing some of the ideas I had in my past life. Some of them I've incorporated into this blog – in fact one of the reasons I write it is to expand on some of the ideas I had before, as well as some of the features of modern life that I consider worthy of comment. Choosing to write about them makes me work out those ideas more thoroughly than I would otherwise. As matter of fact, there are times when I decide to write about something simply because I want to work it out in my mind, and writing about it will force me to clarify it for myself. And if no one reads it, or if readers don't take my views seriously that's all right. I'll understand the issue better. This is one case when it is all about me.

I write, then, for a variety of reasons including the ideas (if not the facts) that I'm reasonably good at it and it makes me think. Writing and thought go together in my view.

And I write because it's fun. I can delineate my views without interruption and without having to hear the responses of others who might think differently from me. If I encounter their opinions I can consider them and, perhaps revise my own perspective. But if I do so it will be without pressure and without contention. I'm just as happy if I don't have to confront those with whom I disagree. My teachers have helped me learn how to express my thoughts and I'm grateful to them. I have so much that I want to say, even if others disagree or are not interested.

I love to think and I love to write. They go together.