True creative output comes from within and cannot be squeezed out by force. No school assignment could set off the same eruption of raw creative passion that I experience through accepting my sporadic impulse to write; to allow my ideas to surface and to watch them climb into the vessel of articulated language. I am not arguing against the utility of external prompting, far from it. But for one’s product to be genuine and pure, their response must be completely voluntary. When one seeks to fulfill others’ demands for their creativity, true success requires that they be intrinsically motivated to create. Ideas must flow out of a person, just as sweat does during physical activity on a hot day, just as tears do when one is overwhelmed by the anxieties and hardships of life, just as blood does as a consequence of one’s careless mishandling of a blade. Only, instead of serving the function of temperature regulation, emotional catharsis, or reminding one of their fragile bodily existence, writing’s purpose is to afford thoughts a means of escape.
This escape, however, has something in common with the physiological phenomena mentioned above; they all share the ultimate purpose of maintaining the homeostatic balance of one’s being. Writing is mental exhalation. The expression of mind and thought is what allows a person to let go of the pervasive obsessions, anxieties, and traumas that accumulate through life. Just as depriving oneself of a means of exhalation will lead to asphyxiation followed quickly by death, neglecting the need to express oneself and articulate one’s thoughts will result in internal suffering and eventual decay of the soul. Why damage the mind’s ability to cleanse itself by attempting to force the outflow of that which may only exit through organic means? What one must do is familiarize themselves with a mode of self-expression, make such mode easily accessible, and act on the urge to express when it arises.