Simply thinking of an idea renders it detached and distant, but writing down that idea makes it concrete.  By expressing an idea on paper, I can thereby access it. There is no room for mistake, misinterpretation, because the idea is in a tangible form. It stays there, untouched. Time will only change an idea held in my mind; it may distort my memory of an idea I created yesterday. However, time will never reverse the stroke of pen on paper.

Writing enables me to remember. By later reading what I wrote, I can have a conversation with my past self. I can revisit myself on the day I formulated that idea and wrote it down. I can see beyond the words I put down and reflect on how I was feeling, determine my mood, and understand the circumstances that led me to articulate that idea. I can see how my thinking has changed, or remained the same, and consider why. I can challenge the idea that my past self devised. After letting an idea sit on paper, I can analyze it with a fresh mind, filled with new perspective and ambition. Through writing, I can bridge old and new ideas, without losing what I originally wrote. The first draft never disappears.

That, too, is why I write:  I write to memorialize my ideas.

In his essay on “Why I Write”, George Orwell describes his “lonely child’s habit” of creating stories and having conversations with imaginary people. Orwell asserts that his desire to write, or his “literary ambitions,” was born out of being lonely and feeling undervalued as a kid. As an only child, I too discovered my literary ambitions by being alone, by not having enough people around me. I grasped a passion for reading long before my passion for writing emerged; reading filled my need to put people in my world.

I picked up things to read when I was a kid. When traveling on a plane, I always read one of the flight magazines found in the seat pocket in front of me. While waiting for my doctor or my barber, I found pleasure in reading anything I could get my hands on; it was my way to pass the time. More than I ever was, my parents were, and still are, avid readers. They modeled the practice of reading for me. While they never pushed me to read, my parents gave me the tools needed to develop my reading habit as a kid.

At the center of our living room sat a black wood and glass coffee table. Stacked with newspapers, magazines, and books—even cluttered at times—it seemed truly out of place. The reason is because our living room was always very ordered. Pillows were neatly positioned on couches, window blinds were set at the same height, and chairs and couches never left their assigned spot. However, right in the center of this maniacal order was that scattered coffee table with its piles of the Financial Times, Economist, Washington Post, and many other books and sports magazines.  It was there on that table that my literary ambitions were first sparked.  

After a long day at school, I would grab a Sports Illustrated magazine from our living room coffee table and flip through it before tackling my homework before dinner. I didn’t have siblings so it was my way to kill the time in the afternoon between getting home and completing my homework. When I picked up wrestling, I lost my free time in the afternoon and reading was no longer a remedy for boredom. Reading became a few minutes of premium time for me. Almost a stolen delight, something sinful even.  At that point in my life, I knew I had better things to do with my time. 

By making time for this casual reading, reading became more of an escape than simply a way to kill the time. I started reading about politics and other local news in the D.C. area in the Washington Post. While I was never interested in launching a career in politics, I enjoyed how reading that section of the Post made me feel connected, grounded in the city where I was born and raised. For example, while once reading an article about a famous pianist who performed the night before at the Kennedy Center, I remembered driving underneath the Kennedy Center esplanade earlier that week on Rock Creek Parkway. But it became more than forming geographical connections to what I read. While reading that same article, I would reflect on all the piano songs I had learned and scan the article for the pianist’s play list. Perhaps this pianist had played a minuet that I had played, too?

It was like this that my passion for writing emerged: as a way for me to look around and make connections. By the time I reached college, reading had been well integrated into my academic life. For as long as I can remember, I have aspired to become a doctor and, as I witnessed reading blend into my scientific learning, my desire to write was realized. For my neuroscience major, I am required to read and write many scientific papers. I write weekly biopsychology research paper reviews for the lab where I work. In my physiology lab class, I practice writing experimental papers from scratch: I design the experiment, conduct it, and then summarize it into a formal format as if I were getting the paper published. What I’m thinking today is connected to something I wrote before—or not.  What excites me is that a chance connection might exist. Writing is my way to find these connections.

Through writing, I see what I learn in one course influence what I write in a paper in another course. I can apply a concept or writing style from one paper to the next. Writing is how I practice research and science. Writing gives me the chance to pull together ideas from a broad set of subjects into a cohesive document. I can take an idea I learned in a cognitive psychology class and apply it in my genetics paper; writing is my way to identify and structure these connections that I otherwise would not be able to make. I might not be correct all the time, but I enjoy trying to form these connections through writing; it gives me a sense of discovery.

Without writing, without my making the connections in what I’m learning, I am not sure that I would truly learn science well. That is, I wouldn’t remember, or connect the dots from one scientific branch to another. I would probably not be a good science student because science has a way of inquiry unto itself: that I know. Writing allows me to fully develop a line of reasoning and end up with a scientific conclusion—where I move from the conjecture and hypothesis, test them out, evaluate results, and draw conclusions. I don’t know that I could do that otherwise except by writing it down. I don’t think that I ever have.

In fact, writing shows me how I grow not only as a writer, but also as a learner. My passion for learning fuels my passion for writing. As an ardent learner, I want to know where I started and where I am now: writing enables me do just that. I can see how I grow as an aspiring doctor through the lenses of a writer. By writing, I can pinpoint the places that I need to expand and deepen. However, writing to me is more than solely a marker for my progress and the way I learn things.

Writing has expanded my desire to bridge ideas into my passion as a means to answer questions. The scientific writing I’ve studied while in college has the quality of concreteness; this style of writing has the purpose to inform me. I write to convey an idea that I have learned to my reading audience. That audience may be a professor or a TA.  It could be one of my lab buddies who needs to know what I think. When I practice science writing in my research lab, I want to answer my questions first, make the connections to everything I’ve learned or written about before, and then answer readers’ questions.  That’s what I want my audience to gain through my writing.

I want to show my readers why I wrote the piece and what question I set out to answer. I especially like writing a piece reporting on lab results, some of which might even be new discoveries.  I feel as though I’m showing the reader the unknown. The challenge of persuading your reader that you found the right answer to a new question intrigues me. When I write, I want my reader to join me in making connections while I aim to tackle that question.