TL:DR. I have now, on a handful of occasions, had this suitably brief statement made about my writing – most recently, ironically enough, on a piece about the long drawn out pleasures of four day cricket. And each time I have, I’ve been left somewhat perplexed – not because I’m unaware that I can, on occasions, go on somewhat – but by why anyone would feel the need to pass judgment on what they’d not read, purely in terms of its length, and so end up commenting only on their own disappointingly short attention span.
Because it is disappointing – to me if not to them. Not to mention a little depressing too. Because not everything can be said in a sound bite.
It’s been almost eight years since I first started this blog, and there are, I think, a number of reasons why my website is now cluttered with well over 600 individual posts. Which, when it comes to writing at least, is the only thing I have in common with George Orwell who, in his essay ‘Why I write’, gave four such reasons, suggesting that, to a greater or lesser extent, each one is present as a motivating factor in all those who put pen to paper.
The first reason he gave was SHEER EGOISM. I don’t deny it. I enjoy writing for writing’s sake but if occasionally someone likes what I write, if perhaps I manage to raise a smile or somebody finds something I’ve written helpful, I find that that brings with it a little extra satisfaction.
Next came AESTHETIC ENTHUSIASM. And once again I put my hand up to that one. I enjoy writing because I enjoy writing, even when no one else enjoys reading what I write! I like playing with words, finding an arrangement of sounds that rolls off the tongue and which is pleasing to at least my ear.
Thirdly on Orwell’s list, was HISTORICAL IMPULSE – the simple desire to write about how things are, to record for others what the truth is. Again mea culpa! I feel a responsibility to write about the state of the world, or at least that part of the world that I inhabit. And writing helps me think about what is going on around me, it helps me understand the realm in which I operate.
And the last reason Orwell gave for why writers write was POLITICAL PURPOSE, by which he meant a desire to influence others, to move others to think in ways that the writer themself thinks. And I suppose that’s true of me too, at least to some extent. Indeed it would, I suspect, be odd if it were not the case.
But there is, I think, a fifth reason for why I write, one which is, perhaps, at least slightly different to those given by Orwell. And it’s this. The NEED TO BE HEARD.
There are some things that are so important to us, that we need them to be important to others. And for that to happen our concerns have to be heard, and felt, by others.
In an indifferent world it’s important that we listen to those we care about, to make a real effort to hear what they are saying. We may not be able to do much about what is spoken, not in any practical sense at least, but caring enough to recognise it matters to the one who is saying it is, at least, a start.
Because to share a little in the experience of others, perhaps even shedding a tear ourselves as others express their sadness, draws us a little closer to the one who suffers, and makes a connection with the one who grieves, a connection that, too often in this frequently contactless world, we fail to make.
And so I write about the things that matter to me most.
I write about cricket – is there anything more important than the domestic cricket season and the violence being done to it by the introduction of franchise cricket? I doubt it, but even so, now is not the time for me to get back on that particular soap box once more.
Though less so now that I’m no longer working as a GP, I write about medicine – of how the NHS is broken and breaking the people who work within it. I write of how it bothers me immensely that patients aren’t getting the treatment they need, not, at least, in a timely fashion. And I write about how it bothers me immensely that people who I care about, people with whom I work, are too often close to tears because of what the job now demands of them.
And I write about other, more general, concerns that trouble me because it’s not only in relation to the world of medicine that people suffer. And irrespective of the reasons for that suffering, and especially when, rather than getting better things seem to be getting progressively worse, I find it helpful to express in what I write some of the sadness I am sometimes prone to feel.
Of course there may be some who would accuse me of being too political at times – but not to write in these subjects would be saying something equally contentious – that they don’t matter. Which simply isn’t true. And if it’s true to say that evil prospers when good men do nothing, then perhaps it’s equally true when those same good men say nothing too.
Not that I consider myself a good man. Far from it. Which is why I also write about my faith – because if it’s everlasting life and infinite joy we want, we will need to look for it somewhere other than medicine and the corridors of power.
Without the faith which sustains me in difficult times, I really don’t know how I’d be able to cope with all that life sometimes entails. But like the psalmist, I really do believe that, though weeping may tarry for the nighttime, joy comes with the morning.
And holding this to be true, irrespective of how long and dark the night continues to be, makes faith something worth writing about too.
Even if you are the only one who ever reads it right to the very end, and having done so are the only one who is ever helped by what I’ve said.
Some musings 