Why do we keep writing?

What is the force that keeps us doing something like writing? Which is the real reason why we insist on putting one word behind the other, while the years run away and nothing beyond that has come?

Do we write to get readers? I do not think so. Together with the question about if I should keep on producing texts in this overinformed world, I used to ask myself about the reasons why someone should spend their time reading what I write.

In the era of social media, it seems like not everyone is asking themselves about a real and deep reason to continue producing text, images and video in this already enough confused world. The relatively easy way to get likes and followers has created the illusion that anyone can be an authoritative voice about any subject: or even more, that we should spend our precious time watching them doing stupid things.

Do not get lost on the screens! Do not be one more of the streamers who die at the front of the camera trying to make an impressive live (just a few, here, here, here and here).

You may like it: How to take care of your writing and avoid the dangers that threaten it

But at the same time, writing needs a reader to close the circle. It can´t stay just in a drawer or in a digital folder: so here you are reading this. And there is another point with the proliferation of young poets and writers: go to any independent publisher’s fair and find a reason to read the hundreds of names you do not know on the books’ covers.

Plurality of voices and young people putting their effort into writing are undoubtedly good things, and I am not trying to throw my 37 years old at the half-light into anyone’s head.

It is just a wondering, and the little intuition that this time didn’t think about the infinite writers and content producers that swarm in the net and different circuits, just as humankind never thought about what to do with the tonnes of clothes discarded every year into the deserts. If poetry is the waste of language, writers are the disposal of art.

When you are going to increase the overinformation we live in (and your digital fingerprint as well), take the responsibility and apply a minimum quality criteria. Open a question, a reflection; provide information, or even a desperation.

And if you are writing for the internet, not even the text is so important: think about the dozens of articles you scroll down just to find the punctual information you are looking for. So get cleaned of expectations and make something short and readable.