Fear of writing or fear of the truth?

Writing is a reflection of the soul, the inner self of a person. No matter in what form the author is going to present it - a journal, an essay, a novel or a poem - the mind of the writer is going to be reflected in his or her writing. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why most people find it so difficult to write. The difficulty does not necessarily arise from the competence of the person's language or the writing experience. These are only technicalities which can be overcome like any other academic subjects for an average person. What is more difficult to overcome is the fear of revealing one's mind.

Most of the time, despite our belief that we are honest persons, we are not all the time honest even to ourselves. Quite often, we say something a matter of factly but we do not believe it to be true or we only hope that it is true. I have heard a scientific report that an average person tells at least two lies everyday. It is natural that we hope that people listening to us will believe what we say and so we try not to allude to the lies that we have told. When it comes to writing, the fear is that we may leave some permanent evidence of our lies.

The lies that I am talking about may not be all harmful. Some of them may be well intended, but we, average ordinary people, are all ashamed of telling lies. Sometimes, we even lie to ourselves. It is easy and convenient to say "I love you" to someone, but it will be definitely more difficult for one to say it in a love letter. Even the most gifted writer will find it difficult to write a really touching love letter, if the receipient is not really someone he or she loves. You may suddenly find that you are lying not only to the one you are writing to, but also to yourself. Perhaps, the skillful writer can still do it easily, if the letter is written on behalf of someone else.

What all these can tell is that above all, we must give our utmost sincerity and honesty in writing. All good writings are, I believe, written with all the the heart and all the soul of the writers. At the same time, writing is also a good means of self-discovery. Chances are one can find a lot of things about oneself which one has never known about oneself. These may be one's weaknesses or one's strength. The more a writer can reveal his or her true inner ego in writing, the better his or her writing will be.