Why Do I Write?

“Don’t waste spit or energy. Nothing will change anyway.”

Entertaining such a thought is disheartening. Yet it is a remark I have received time and again when discussing current events with the people I know; frustrated people, exhausted people with a lot on their minds.

I have been exhausted. I am frustrated. I have been through clinical depression.

Maybe I still am.

So why do I waste the energy? Can I afford to fight an unwinnable battle?

Why do I write?

Am I on some ego trip or chasing a fantasy that someday I will be someone history will remember as being important?

Definitely not. I am a nobody behind a keyboard with a family and a job with a lot on my mind just like anyone. But because I am anyone I believe I could not expect others to speak for me any longer. Because if even if 0.0000000000000000001% of a person listens and mulls my thoughts over, I would have at least made as much of the difference I would like to do. Because no one else would do it.

Do I think I know better? That I know it all?

Far from it. I had access to knowledge others may have been denied or unable to access for one reason or another that has, yes, informed me to observe, listen, memorize and make the measure of a situation critically and with as little an emotional bias as possible. But it is not perfect. I am not perfect. I want to engage to learn more. Because I want to know better, because I believe that, just like you who are reading this, am unfinished. But I would not like to keep my unfinishedness to myself. I want to share it. Because in sharing my unfinishedness I can help the unfinishedness of others and for the risk of sounding trite, bring education to all and myself included.

I want to engage. I want to be in the world. I thirst to learn and to teach. To affect and be affected.

Who am I to write such things?

A human being with a mind of his own. True, I describe myself as a Catholic Socialist; but I am, above all, a human being. It is only human to wish to engage and be engaged. Not everyone has the energy or time to make moves on this scale or address such matters as publicly, sure. And there is nothing wrong with it, as long as that change you want to do is being made in your corner. In fact, it is honorable and truly admirable to keep the spirit going.

But I do. And I can’t wait for others to do it for me. To talk for me. To make change for me.

Do I expect grand gestures or a radical shift?

I would be extremely unrealistic to expect so. No. It would suffice for me to get at least one person to ask. To engage. To not remain passive. To foster curiosity. To engage with the world critically.

Do I think I am ever wrong?

Absolutely. All the time. Even now in writing this do I question myself. But in engaging I have learned to appreciate that in myself and has given room for more complex thinking that is affected as much as it affects and thus truly be human. In doing so, I have allowed myself to learn more rather than simply teach.

I have thus learned not to trust those who do not doubt themselves, as those such people have no desire to engage with anything but themselves. And there is no joy in that alone, now, is there?

I believe in my country. I believe in Malta. Not the system, but the humanity its people are able to exude. Of finding their identities in making a better system than what we have, as a system always has something to improve. If we do not engage with the system, it will never change.

Even when it refuses to do so.

So, is this a waste of time?

Perhaps. But I want to do it anyway. Because no one will do it for me.

I, therefore, invite you, dear reader, to engage in critical discourse with enthusiasm, to be curious, to speak and engage. To remain critical of the world and to yourself, and be able to engage with it and with me with the respect of the dignity all in it deserve.

Not spouting platitudes or slogans you have learned from elsewhere or indulging in being hurtful to assert superiority, but to truly engage.

Be human. And engage.