2025-03-16 23:30

Tags: writing, ego, success, selfishness

I read this in an article "Why I write?" by George Orwell.

Here is the snippet under the heading "SHEER EGOISM"

Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful business men – in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they abandon individual ambition – in many cases, indeed, they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all – and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

My Thoughts

Often I have wondered, "Why do I write?". The most frequent answer from my intuitive voice is that, I want to be remembered. May be not today, but in day to come when someone reads what I have written.

Other times it’s about showing off my intellectual, reflective and aesthetic side, as if I belong to a certain tribe of people as Orwell mentions above as the "top crust of humanity".

Sometimes it's about self-reflection and processing my own emotions. At times it's about the release of an anger. At times it's about forgiveness. Sometimes it could be about really helping someone who could benefit from reading it. At times, it's also about a long term financial gain from the pieces of writings. As if, everything I write is a part of an ongoing book I might write someday.

The reasons could be endless and it’s difficult to point out which reason is the strongest.

References

Here is the link to the article.