Why do we write things down, anyway?

To start, I would say I do because I can. Then I will tell you because I was made to remember 7 +/- 2 items that would remain in my short term memory, and if lucky, could get into my long term memory. I would also dare say because I was created with the ability to hold and use a pen, or type on a keyboard, and was also created with eyes and the mental capacity to decipher the symbols I put down as well as the ability to recall them, understand them, and internalize them at any time I feel the need to.

Going beyond my ability – or limited ability – I would say that there is a deeper desire for “Man” to write things down in a way as to preserve, or capture the images and thoughts that run through the minds eye. As a human, we can only store and retain so much information before certain things become ‘hazy’, therefore we write them down as a way of preservation and a way to make that thought ‘stick’.

We write because it is our primal innate characteristic to communicate. What is communicated are thoughts, ideas, and emotions across time and space. Since we can’t communicate from the future, we express ourselves in the present through oral, and visual means. Oral being spoken and/or, if we were to go there, unspoken in the form of melody, harmony, and rhythm (as represented in music); Visual, through the use of symbols, which over time, formed into a writing system, which created letters that when put together conveyed thoughts, ideas, and emotions. What I am getting at is that writing is a preservation of language and an extension thereof as well the conveyance of meaning and information.

I would even go as far to say that although we are limited to time and space when writing, we write because there are endless possibilities of things that can be conveyed within a writing system. Limited to language of course, and expressed differently for every language, we write for many reasons, for example: recording. With writing, one can record laws, contracts, history, events, thoughts, ideas and just about anything that can be extracted from thought, or consciousness. We extend communication far beyond the distance our voices can travel.

Today, we write for similar reasons that people did thousands of years ago, but through the advent of blogs, and twitter, we can now write with the opportunity that our ‘voice’ can be instantly read by thousands. That wasn’t exactly the case in the times of Christopher Columbus, as messages then took months to travel from one continent to the other. A blog can become just about anything anyone wants it to be, just like writing was designed for. If you want to share thoughts, feelings, and ideas, you can do so through a blog with the new twist being placed upon the vast audience that can be reached, instantly.