As an introverted kid, I used to daydream a lot and often found myself lost in thought.
During summers, I would read books, but the idea of writing—sitting down and putting my thoughts on paper—never occurred to me.
The idea of writing did come to me later in life, in my early 20s, as a defense mechanism. You know that phase in life where nothing seems to be working out for you? I had recently moved to a bigger city and had gone through a heartbreak. Life in this new city, away from my family, wasn’t ideal. And this is when writing found me.
I just took my journal and started writing whatever was in my head. There was no end goal or purpose—only the expression of what I was feeling. Writing became an enjoyable activity in and of itself.
In fact, there’s a word for this kind of experience: Autotelic. From the Greek “auto” (self) and “telos” (end)—an Autotelic is “something that has a purpose in, and not apart from, itself.”
I wrote about my insecurities, my resentments, my fears, my dreams—all on paper, all out in the open. Writing helped me make sense of the world around me, to process my emotions, and to quiet the noise in my head. And it worked. The more I wrote, the greater clarity of thought I got.
Over time, it gave me a sense of control over my thoughts, and more importantly, my life. I could identify the flaws in my thinking, detect patterns, and ease the anxiety from overwhelming thoughts.
Little did I know that writing would become a part of life. It was the only thing I felt truly capable of, the only thing I could contribute to the world with.
But somehow, writing for myself became writing for others. I wrote for cloud hosting companies that needed copy for their landing pages, for athletes who wanted to share their successes, for lice removal companies that needed 8 blogs for 8 different locations.
In the midst of all this, I lost that young boy who wrote in his journal just for the sake of it. Now, every piece of writing has a goal, an ROI attached to it. It could be lead generation, SEO ranking, or just personal recognition.
As someone who dedicates himself to the written word, I don’t mind this kind of writing as well. It’s my job. It’s what puts food on the table. And I do enjoy it (for the most part). The point is I miss the time when I wrote just for the sake of it.
I want to end this newsletter with a lesson from a different field: skateboarding. In one of his interviews, Rodney Mullen, the godfather of modern street skating, shared some profound wisdom. He said that that money, respect, admiration, or fans can’t be things that drive you.
He explains, “If you decide those things are why you’re doing what you’re doing, your days are numbered. Because all that stuff eventually fades to just static, and you’re left with you and what you do. I see people with talent all the time, but the one thing they don’t have is just that love for doing something for the sake of it. I have that. I’ve nurtured it in my life. And I think that’s been a key for me, of why I’ve been able to sustain this fire that’s so seemingly easily quenched. You know?”
Finding joy in what you do for the sake of it and keeping the fire alive—that’s the goal.