Why I Don’t Write
Imposter syndrome is killing creativity, and comparison is killing originality.
I’ve never considered myself a writer.
When I was 7 years old, I was told to write a short story about something that happened in my life recently. 1-3 pages, an elementary assignment, nothing serious. I wrote 8 pages.
When I was in middle school and we first learned how to summarize a text, I didn’t exactly get the concept and ended up writing just as much as the original text, just re-written with what I took from it. I lost points on that assignment, but I didn’t stop writing.
When I was assigned my Capstone in college, I wrote a 25-page guide relating to mental health for international students, in comparison to the event planning or social media campaigns that many students chose.
But because I’ve never written a book, or thought I would become a published author, it’s taken 22 years to allow myself the title of a writer.
I feel guilty contributing to the already over-saturated, opinionated, unsolicited place that has become the internet. I compare my words to those of famous, well-written authors – those whose work made it into the Classics or whose speeches have impacted millions. I have the mindset that if I’m not as good as the best, I shouldn’t contribute at all.
This imposter syndrome is ingrained into our culture. From the time we are children, we are taught that comparison is the growth mindset. For example, those who are academically prone are pitted against one another, awarded with prizes and recognition from the community if they happen to rise above the others. They grow up comparing their test scores and, eventually, degrees to one another, utilizing comparison as a catalyst for growth. If a child were to say they want to be a scientist, they are told, “maybe you’ll be the next Einstein or Newton or Curie!” We immediately give them someone to compete against, rather than encourage originality. Then our children come to us, burnt out and lacking inspiration, and we wonder where we went wrong.
It’s an odd dichotomy, criticizing lack of individualism while also shaming free thought and ingraining competition in our culture.
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I love writing. I love the release it provides and the ability to think and edit and delete my words, something I often wish I could do in my day-to-day conversations. I appreciate how it is ever-changing – the language, the slang, the style. It’s one of the oldest forms of communication, and it is, in some ways, eternal where we are ephemeral. When we brought social media into the picture, we solidified this concept. Anonymity to post words that will last for much longer than us. In school, they often ask us who our target audience is, a concept which is now becoming lost – there is no longer a guarantee of a specific group of people words will reach. There are now algorithms, share buttons, reposts, screenshots.… Our words are taken and thrown into a metaphorical paper shredder and torn apart by those who do not have the context to interpret them. There’s no need for tone or punctuation or expression when using the internet because there is no formal guideline. And this is another reason why I don’t write.
It’s constant and it’s unrestricted - there’s a safety in anonymity and when people have no healthy outlet for their pain and anger towards the world, they turn to one another for reprieve. Vulnerability offends people faster than actual hatred, and the internet has become a breeding ground for both.
So, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, the reason I don’t write, or consider myself a writer, is because I’m simply scared of the repercussions of writing in the 21st century. As much as I hope my words can connect with others going through shared experiences, I have no control over that, nor should I count on it. When I was 7 years old, writing about what I did over the weekend, or when I was 13, writing about ancient Egypt, I didn’t count on the fact that my teacher would relate to what I wrote, or even like it. I wrote it because I enjoyed the process of writing. I wish I could pinpoint the moment when I started comparing my work to others and lost confidence in sharing something because I liked it. Comparison culture has washed over so many young creatives, a symptom of a world that begs for growth but has become stuck in a pit of its own ambition. Rather than sharing written words because they need to be read, we should be sharing because we need to write.
I only started sharing my writing for a university assignment, and I quickly realized how much I missed the creative outlet. It was once I started remembering how successful other writers are that I overlooked the passion for writing and it turned into a chore. My words may not be groundbreaking, but they’re original, and to some, those are the same thing. In a world of artificial thoughts, photos, ideas, words … we should be celebrating unconventionalism as evidence that creativity still exists. It doesn’t need to be good, it just needs to be done, because if it’s never done, then why were we given the skills to do it in the first place?