If psychological benefits are a byproduct of writing, the more moribund of you may ask, why do all these famous writers commit suicide? After all, not only do they write a lot, and should therefore experience the great psychological benefits accompanying the act, they were also generally wealthy, so didn’t have money issues to worry about. Hunter S. Thompson, Ernest Hemingway and Robert E. Howard are three that spring to mind without me having to look anything up.
But I went and checked wikipedia anyway; there are 255 authors (famous enough to have a wikipedia page) who ended up committing suicide. I didn’t look up anything about what percentage of writers that is, for comparison to the percentage of suicides in the general population, because a) that would be almost impossible, and b) it would be just silly.
One could say that the well-established tie between the artistic temperament and depression could be at work, here. I am of the notion that if it were not for their writing, they would have committed suicide a lot earlier in their lives. But I digress…
The process of writing forces us to compartmentalize our thoughts and stream our consciousness into a legible, logical succession of ideas (unless we want our readers to think us complete nutters, that is). Often we find out what we actually think about something by attempting to write about it. As we explore the idea, thinking how to frame what we think we think; so we unthink what we thought, and think anew. I think.
Such structuring not only reinforces logical thinking, it demonstrates the fallacy of the illogical. We learn about ourselves by enquiring of our personalities and opinions.
Speaking for myself, I often go off on tangents to finish a thought before heading back to the tenuous narrative I‘m vainly hoping to describe. Sure, it may seem a little disjointed and unprofessional, but I’m not always writing a piece for an academic journal. And often these tangents lead to the formation of a thought or idea that is ultimately far more compelling than the direction I was heading in the first place. Which is why I pursue them. Because as often as not, the tangent leads to some interesting stuff. Sometimes there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; likewise, sometimes there’s just a little Irish fella in a grim mood.
He should try a bit of writing.
I think what’s going on here is the application of focus. We’ve all experienced this when we’re not thinking about the shopping, or what we’re going to have for dinner, or who is going to pick the kids up from school (never mind all the work-related crap we have to sift through on a daily basis) and we manage to pinpoint all our cognitive resources on a given task.
Be it playing a sport, a video game, watching a gripping movie, or reading a real page-turner of a novel, it can be quite eye-opening how much attention we bring to bear. (Notice I did not mention anything about pinpointing all our cognitive resources on a work task, now did I? I wonder what that says about me. Okay, I know what that says about me. No comments necessary.)
Stay close for Part III, on 1st of March.
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Tags: blog, blogging, blogging therapeutic, therapeutic
