Who Am I As A Writer

This was written as a response to a short reflexive question members of my English class and I were supposed answer in 250 words to finish off the semester. The question was: Who am I as a writer?

Who am I as a writer?  In order to answer that question, I first of all have to answer what it means to write.  Writing is organized thinking that also happens to be recorded.  My mind is constantly writing, but what it writes is constantly getting erased, since it’s not always written down.  Writing and writing things down, I think, are two very different things.  I think everyone is constantly going through the process of writing, whether they are aware of it or not.  It’s just that very few people actually get their writing down on paper, and even fewer go through all the effort of getting it published for everyone else to see and learn from their organized thinking.  

So, who am I as a writer—well, as a teacher of mine commented tonight, “Jacob, you just never stop thinking about things.”  While taken out of context that might seem like nothing short of a compliment, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t aimed in that sort of light—he seemed to say it as if with an unspoken but understood follow-up: “...And it gets in the way of things.”  I had to agree with him, and although my thinking may complicate things or bog things down from time to time, I love it, and it keeps me alive.  Writing is like a form of breathing for me, as cliche and melodramatic as that may sound, because breathing can turn into laughing, or sighing, or coughing—all very different experiences, but all resulting in some sort of a sense of relief.  So who am I as a writer?  Well, that’s sort of a dumb question.  I don’t think I need to answer it.