Why do we write?

What happens to a thing once we write it down?

Once we write something down it becomes real. Whatever feeling or experience you felt or witnessed is now tangible; there is no escaping it. Sometimes when you're at a concert you almost don't want to film your favorite song because you want to be in the moment. You will probably never go back to watch that video and if you do it will never be as good as it was live, inevitably tainting the memory and leaving a bad taste in your mouth. But to not document something means to submit to the risk of forgetting; I forget things all the time, even things that I hoped I would remember forever. So we ask ourselves: what should we do? To write or not to write? Transferring something from our internal dialogue and physical being into something that frequently lacks the ability to encapsulate it the way it originally felt, gives the sense that we are altering a personal memory, but there's something comforting about freezing a moment in time, an emotion, or a version of you that is fleeting. And maybe the slight feeling of vulnerability that we feel when documenting something that existed only within or to us, its new tangible presence holds something much greater than it existing just within your mind. 

February 2025