Journal Entry: Writing for oneself v.s for others (MDS 3001W)

Reflect on how your writing has been different when writing for yourself vs. writing for others. You can reflect on the writing experiences in this class or an experience in your past.

• Do you follow a different process when you are writing for yourself?
• Which is easier for you, writing for yourself or writing for others, and why?
  

  Although it would be easier than writing for others, I don't write for myself. At times in my younger days I kept a journal, but only sporadically. Even my long-standing propensity to create and refer to list has diminished greatly. At this point I write when necessary, or to communicate to many people at once, but I feel strongly that writing is as limited compared to actual face-to-face interaction as texting is limited compared to handwriting letters. I've made a deliberate effort not to write things that could wait to be said in person. I see writing for myself as an even more worthless exercise. To rationalize and calcify my inner experience on paper serves no direct purpose for me, any more than it would help to have a conversation with your sister translated to Cantonese and back between your lips and her ear.

   This class has forced me to do a lot of writing that could be thought of as “for myself.” However, given the rigid constraints on length, subject, and timing, the experience has in no way felt self-directed or self-gratifying, so labeling it “for myself” is meaningless. If you get zero points for taking too long, it's not “for yourself...” The writing in this class has the explicit audience of the instructor, your classmates, and the MDS committee. To find meaning in this writing, I have added another audience in the form of my blog, which I assume will be read primarily by friends and family. I have tried as much as possible to prioritize this audience while meeting the requirements of the assignments. This has, at times, been the only way I could overcome the difficulty I had in writing “for myself” work to be submitted for judgment by a higher authority.