How Apt… The desire to Write

I just finished writing my last post, clicked on Published, and waited while WordPress put a stamp on it and sent it off to the world.

Then, WordPress displayed an encouraging message on the side of the screen saying that “This was my 179th post!”, as well as showing an “inspiring quote” underneath it…

The desire to write grows with writing.
— Desiderius Erasmus

Initially I gave it a passing glance, but then I stopped and re-read it…

The desire to write grows with writing.
— Desiderius Erasmus

This was amazing. I’ve become more and more aware that when I write, I end up wanting to write more. It’s as if there are more than the standard 4 neurons firing in my brain (of course neurons don’t “fire”, then tend to “release chemicals and electrical charges”, but there is no actual “fire”). 

Whatever’s happening I find myself looking at, and reading things differently. I start to really “analyze and process” what I’m taking in, in an active way, rather than just passively letting the blah, blah, blah travel from my eyes to that grey mass in my head where it competes with more important details such as what is for dinner tonight, “did I turn off the stove this morning”, and an assorted other thoughts that I am, unfortunately, not allowed to include in this blog post.

And that was what one of my main goals was when I started writing this blog. It was also akin to something that Andrew Chapman confessed to me to me when I was just a bright-eyed, innocent, blogger (with only a few posts under my belt). Andrew said “it helps me understand what I’m thinking” (or something similar. Andrew, my apologies if this is too far off the truth).

So – the above quote, from Mr Erasmus is pretty accurate. “Writing really does beget writing” (to paraphrase).
No wonder they named a university after him! (Despite the fact that he has an extremely pointed nose and looks like the kind of person you wouldn’t invite to your party).

It also goes to show that some things have not changed over the last 600 years.

Related Links

• Desiderius Erasmus in Wikipedia
• How your brain works
• The Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands
• Andrew Chapman’s book “Never Talk When You Can Nod. Compliance, eDiscovery And Enterprise Content Management Systems”
• The meaning of “beget”