We Need to Write

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, P243/244

“Do you try to treat cancer sores or the cancer itself? We cannot afford to give pocket money to our children. We cannot afford to eat meat. We cannot afford bread. So your child steals and you turn to him in surprise? You must try to heal the cancer because the sores will keep coming back.”
“Mba, Chiaku. You cannot justify theft.”
“I do not justify it. What I am saying is that Okafor should not be surprised and should not waste his energy breaking a stick on his poor son’s body. It is what happens when you sit back and do nothing about tyranny. Your child becomes what you cannot recognize.”

A friend asked me the other day, “Do you write?” It was a simple question. It had a simple answer, or so I thought. I answered truthfully; no, I don’t write. Unless you count the research reviews and essays that I have to regularly submit to my university professors, and the countless lists of things to do and things to buy and things to organise that I find necessary in order to bumble through life, I do not write.

That simple “No”, for some reason, struck a chord in me. I continued the conversation as normal, allowing the natural flow and change of subject, as occurs in such genial and everyday chats. My mind, however, stubbornly lingered on the topic of writing. No, I do not write. I do not write. As soon as that “No” left my lips (well, my fingertips; online conversations unfortunately seem to now make up quite a sizeable proportion of my communication with other human beings), my mind asked “Why not?” Why not, indeed? A series of thoughts and questions, some quite uncomfortable and unwanted, presented themselves in my mind – “well, I clearly have no time”, “science writing IS writing… right?”, “it’s okay, because I am a lover of literature”, “I read loads!”, “why don’t I write?”, “wait, DO I read loads?”, “ah crap, I don’t read loads”, “I wish I read more”, “no time!”, “I should MAKE time!”, “but I also want a first-class degree”, “why don’t I write?”, “CAN I even write?”, “there was that poem…”, “yeah, but that was in year 8!”, “hmm, fair point”, “why don’t I write?” – And so on and so forth.

I seem to pride myself on my love and appreciation of good literature. I’ve always rather fancied myself to be a bookworm. I can spend hours browsing around Waterstone’s or Borders (WHSmith lacks the authentic sophisticated bookstore ‘feel’, in my opinion), delighting in the mere presence of such an abundance of books, revelling in the feeling of being surrounded by millions of people and their voices and their stories, all printed and bound and eager to be heard. Fact and fiction, much of the time distinct but often mingled, contained in book form, waiting patiently and expectantly for someone, for me, to come along and turn the pages and allow it to be free, to take form and expression through my imagination. So many worlds, so many ages, so many characters, all waiting, waiting; they wait quietly for me to lose myself among them. The written word is powerful. It evokes emotions and stimulates thought. It has the ability to as easily save a life as to condemn one.

I could go on, getting evermore clichéd, but you get the idea. Oh, and I also happen to like books because of their smell; that ‘new book’ scent never fails to make me smile, and the mustiness of older volumes is strangely comforting.

Despite all my long-standing declarations of literary appreciation, I have come to realise that the past couple of years has seen a decline in the reality of my bookworm ways. I mean, I have a moderate collection on my bookshelves, but it hasn’t been updated for quite some time. Too many sit there unread. I used to be able to lose myself for hours in a book; nowadays, I find that quite hard. The internet is far too much of a distraction. Again, here I am making excuses. No; I won’t do that anymore.

I was initially startled by my mind’s insistence on pressing this matter of my reading, or lack thereof. And then, of course, I questioned my agitation: “Why am I surprised?”I now recognise that I realised a long time ago that I was letting my literary passion and ability slip away from me, but for some reason had chosen to ignore that feeling of guilt. My mind has finally reached the point of no longer being able to avoid the issue. I will stop simply masquerading as a book lover; I am rekindling my real love of literature, both reading and writing. Welcome back, precious quiet hours, to sharing thoughts and smiles and tears and laughter with wonderful pages bound in a cover.

So, after days of pondering and self-inquisition (and much admiration and appreciation of the particular friend who unwittingly started this whole thing), I have come to two conclusions:

One: I evidently spend far too much time arguing with and having discussions with myself. Is this normal? Probably not (then again, it probably is. Everybody seems to moan about over-thinking things).

Two: I need to read. I need to write.