Why I Write

A welcome letter

Image from RawPixel

This is my true self. Right here, on these digital pages. I know it is because I heard the sound of parts clicking together—first part being me, and second part being what I knew I needed to write about when I created this publication and gave it a name.

You know, like the Bouba-Kiki effect. People match the nonsense word “bouba” with a rounded shape and “kiki” with a spiky shape. Similarly, my inner world matches the words Letters from Terra. When I say these words out loud or whisper them to myself softly, something in me tenderly clicks.

But I didn’t always know what I wanted to write about. Not until I mustered enough courage to admit to myself who I am and why I write. Before that, I tried to come up with clever and poetic names for this space. I tried to decide what to write about, analyze options, and make decisions. None of it felt true—probably because I was trying so hard to convince myself I should write as a psychologist, a fiction writer, a poet, or a parent. I tried to downsize my writing to what marketers call a niche.

I tried to bend the shape of myself so it could fit the mold. The self can bend in many directions, but not when you force it. No, then it tends to shrink, to put on a mask, to perform. To make you miserably unsure of who you are and what the hell you want from your life.

It is similar to those toys designed for babies to learn shapes—my daughter had one of those. You can push the wooden star into the rectangular hole as much as you want, but it just won’t go in. You won’t hear the sound.

Letters from Terra is a fictional philosophical novel written by a character in Vladimir Nabokov’s Ada, or Ardor. The fact that I named my publication this is not only a dedication to Nabokov, although I could write hundreds of dedications, odes, and thank-you letters to him. It’s something more. It’s a reminder to stay true to myself and remember why I write in the first place. And my reason for writing is that I want to live fully awake.

There was a moment when I was reading another of Nabokov’s novels, Lolita, in my university dorm. I was twenty-two. My cat—a kitten then—was playing with my pen as I wrote in the margins of the book. And then the words—I don’t remember which ones exactly—and the light falling on the pages, and the cat’s little paw, made me lose my breath. I was so vulnerable before the beauty of the world. And life made perfect sense.

I named this publication Letters from Terra as a reminder, a sixteen-word-long arrow pointing in the direction of my true self. That moment from so long ago is what I strive for. I want to feel and write about the beauty of our world. Pain, too. And fear.

Abraham Maslow said that if you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being, you will be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life.

What a scary, scary thought! And so concise. Ruthless.

I don’t want to spend my life writing about things I suppose people will find helpful or useful. I don’t want to write the way the psychologist in me once tried to. I have something else in me that needs to be written: letters about fragments of our world that make me realize how happy I am to be here, to live.

So, welcome. I hope something you read here will make you pause and think, “It feels so good to be alive.”

To be fully alive is why I write. Even when it scares me or it hurts.