Musings 1: Read Something Before You Write Something

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Hello Steemians!

As you might have observed, I have been on a hiatus lately. The usual everyday posting has turned into intermittent posting which was sparsely scattered throughout the week. The longest that I haven't produced anything was 6 days. I still have an arsenal of ideas to write, but I choose not to post. I don't know if I can classify it as a writer's block. I guess all writers and aspiring writers know about writer's block. For those who don't, it's a condition where a writer experiences a creative slowdown or an inability to produce something.

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I could not understand why I feel this way. I just choose to let myself wander as it wanted to be. I never force myself to do things that are way out of its natural order. For about 2 weeks now, I can say that I am not in my normal writer self. In all honesty, I have also experienced the same creative slowdown at work. Since January, I can feel that I haven't fully committed myself to my deliverables. It hasn't subsided since, but it was just masked by steemit. I have been experiencing pure contentment here that I haven't paid much attention to the other aspects of my life, especially my day job.

I don't want to really continue with this kind of feeling because it might spread to all areas of my life, until I can't produce anything of value anymore. As my way of getting myself back on track, I have been experimenting on things that may spark my interest. To start, I decided to write anything that's on my mind, regardless of its quality. I decided to tap my thoughts in its raw form. No filters, no worries, and no judgments of these thoughts. Just pure translation of ideas into writing.

I call this personal move as Musings. Musing is defined as a period of thought or reflection. Other notable synonyms are thinking, contemplation, deliberation, and dreaming. It actually reflects my state of mind while I was writing. To start with these musings, I decided to go for a topic that has been relevant for writers.

Read Something

As an avid reader, I have never been disappointed with what I am doing. I can say that everything will really make sense in the end, even if you don't understand anything with what you are reading.

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Let me correct that heading. It should have been Read Anything or Read Everything. I actually read everything. Not just on subjects that interest me. Let me tell a story that made me say that everything will make sense in end. When I was in elementary, one of the happiest school days for me was during book distributions. It was this time that I could have other books to read. After a week or two, I would get bored of those books and find something else to read. I remember when I was in Grade 2 that I borrowed books from my friend who was in Grade 5.

I was glad when there was an NGO that donated books and set up a library in our school. I always visit the library during noon time and after class. Through this habit before, I was able to expand my view of the world. I was able to understand different perspectives. I became aware of the issues that stricken the society. I couldn't say that I have reached full awareness already, but through reading, my eyes were opened to different possibilities.

Another story; I had a habit of reading anything which includes labels and nutrition facts. I read the ingredients of a local shampoo brand and I couldn't understand their functions before. One ingredient is sodium lauryl sulfate or NaC₁₂H₂₅SO₄. Back then, I couldn't understand what that means. But during our organic chemistry class in college, that substance surfaced again. I was amazed that it is a foaming agent and a surfactant. No wonder it made sense to be one of the main ingredients in shampoos.

Write Something

Writing for me is a process. A thought process. A process of putting your ideas into a tangible evidence that shows your views of a certain topic. It shows how you were able to synthesize different ideas, facts, learnings, and experiences into one coherent story. Writing something out of your head is not that difficult for me, but relating two different things into one merged concept is another story.

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Writing is also a form of communication. It is a tool to communicate in compliment with speech. Through symbols and texts, ideas were get across from one person to another. Motivations of writing are storytelling, record keeping, and correspondence. Throughout history, invention of writing has made drastic changes of how society functions.

When you write something, you have your intended audience in mind. Your intention will reflect into the words that you choose to convey your message. Different writing styles emerge from different intentions of writing.

Writing for me is a meditative and a therapeutic process. This is of course, if I will just let my words flow and disregard my inclination to be critical of my output. Putting myself under the scrutiny of others through my written pieces is sometimes dreadful for me, but I've learned just to let it go. It's hard at first, but I eventually managed to pour out my heart into writing without thinking of how others will see me in the end.

Read Something Before You Write Something

This should be the order and it should not be reversed. I believe that you couldn't give something you don't have. This is analogous to reading and writing. Reading is receiving something or sparking an idea in your mind. Reading enables you to receive a seed of idea that you plant and cultivate inside your head. Writing, on the other hand, is sharing the fruits of those ideas that you cultivate in your head. You were able to share your thoughts because those thoughts were planted and cultivated in your head through reading.

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I always emphasize that Steemit is not just a community of content creators, but also a community of content consumers. When I'm not posting, I just read anything from here. I read everything, including those drama and whale wars from the trending page. Through reading, I was able to enrich my knowledge in which I was able to share them here.

I am a voracious reader, the same way as I am a voracious eater. I don't have specific subjects of interest. I consume everything available for me to read. This might be one of the reasons why I consider myself as a multipotentialite. Since I read varied areas of interest, my range of topics to discuss became longer and wider. Also, I became knowledgeable in different fields of discourse. I am not an expert, but I know something and I think that makes me one step ahead in any discussion.

Project L.I.B.R.O.

_{This pupil in Calbasaan Elementary School read or looked at the pictures while we were having an activity at the stage. I might use this photo as a banner of Project L.I.B.R.O. Image courtesy of Keith Adrian Allosada.}
Project L.I.B.R.O is an initiative of the University of San Carlos Chemical Engineering Society (USC ChES), an organization in which I am a member since 2011. Lately, we set up the library of Calbasaan Elementary School. This was Phase 1 of the project in that beneficiary school. If you haven't read @thegaillery's perspective on what happened during the activity, you can read it here.

The project's tagline:

Bringing out the reader in every child.

Bringing out the reader in every child will eventually bring out dreamers and visionaries in them. My hope is bringing out the writers in them. Who knows? If steemit is still alive and fully functional in the future, we might encounter budding content creators who have been one of the students in our beneficiary schools.

This is the reason why Project L.I.B.R.O has been very close to my heart. It's my way of giving back and extending the opportunity for the children to dream through reading.

Please let me know what you think about this musing.

See you in Musings 2!
Kim, @ybanezkim26

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References:
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_(process)
[2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing