Tracing Cause to Effect

There are many reasons why I write.

Mainly because I feel that I express myself better when I'm writing, because you have backspaces and the tiny little punctuations that let you really place your words where you want them to be. Because the things that end up being read are the things that have gone through your head countless times, enough to think over (for the moment, at least) what you should and shouldn't write.

I write to clear the tangled up lines of thought in my head, in the places where I can no longer trace cause to effect, I write things down. So that I can clearly see what I am thinking.

But liking writing without having anything to write about is like having a fork without having a food to pick up, so I write because I feel that I have things to say. Writing without a reader too is like making dinner for an empty table, so I write because I feel like the things that I have to say should be heard by others.

And these things, certainly, are of much importance to me.

I write about the things I am thoroughly grateful for and I write about the things that I wish others could have to be grateful for.

Like how I am grateful for the roof over my head, and how the fact that at least 13 percent of Indonesia's population live under the poverty line without a proper roof over their head. Then perhaps, about how I am grateful for having choices I never had to make and about how everyone deserve equal chances to these choices.

I write to remind myself of how grateful I should be and to remind myself what I should do to give back. Big talk, yes. Big responsibility, perhaps one I can't take on on my own. But, you see, that is why I write, because my thoughts are simply thoughts, a hypothesis based on what I know and what I think (with bias). Each person is taught kindness, but the world is a big place for everyone. All kindness is wasted by ignorance.

We feign knowledge, we feign compassion. And maybe, that is exactly what I'm doing right now, trying to be compassionate, to find the unfortunate so that I can find my own cause. Trying to be gentle, perhaps it is simply narcissism.

But my questions and criticism, though with bias and little consideration of reality, represent the ideals that I (at that moment) have come to believe. Perhaps I am mistaken, perhaps I am not. Maybe I failed to trace my cause to its effect and so failed to paint the picture of an ideal world in your head.

I am not questioning you. I am not questioning the world. The questions I ask are written so we could deliberate and so that I can finally come to an answer.

An answer that may well change in the future, or an answer that might change many things. Your writing is like a plant in a greenhouse, you can water it every day and it will grow, but it will never grow out of the pot if you don't let it. Grow and wither, given everything you could muster yourself.

I write to let it out of the greenhouse, out to the open air, out to the fresh soil and out to the sun. Out to the scrutiny it needs to grow and expand, to take roots and spread.

That, is why I write.