Doubts About Writing
As I was uploading my previous blog post, I suddenly remembered that I have an Instagram account under the same name as my blog domain (@ingridcblog). I made the account under the request of my Journalism 101 professor. She wanted us to post pictures on the reports that we were doing. I didn’t think of it as that much of a deal at the time. At times, I even thought it was pretty crap and “not legit” since they were just assignments for an introductory course, and we were just reporting about unimportant New York City daily life.
I looked back on some of the photos and brief excerpts I wrote to complement the posts, and then I started to remember that summer two years ago when I first got into journalism. It wasn’t so much so about whether the articles I wrote were good or not, than it was about the augmented experience I gained of the city life by spending extensive amount of time to find stories worth telling. It’s also about all the strangers I approached — a lot of times I was rejected — but sometimes I got to hear from people very different from me. These interactions brought another dimension to my way of viewing the city and the people living in it.
After Journalism 101, I took many more journalism classes for my electives and completed some other reporting projects on things I was interested in. At that time, these student projects felt like children’s play, and I never actually saw myself being a journalist either. Sometimes I couldn’t see how my interest in people and their stories could be useful, and I couldn’t see the point of why stories should be told. With all these doubts, I sort of just gave up on writing and reporting despite finding myself naturally drawn to it.
(During summer 2022, I would wear these sunglasses and go out on the streets with my camera to do journalism assignments.)
While I was writing the previous blog post, I was plagued once again by these doubts. Fundamentally, I seem to not trust the act of writing. Having a powerful voice, or ability to share and narrate, seem to be last on the list of things I thought would make a person happy. I didn’t know why I wrote, nor did I know who I was writing for. It always felt like I was talking into a void, and I always saw the paragraphs I churn out as babbles that would eventually be washed away by the other thousands of words being said everyday. It’s kind of funny that I never knew I had such pessimistic view about writing, until I started writing about my thoughts about writing (sounds like a tongue twister lol).
I look back at my brief period in college of being very invested in journalism — all the pictures and stories about places and people I saw everyday — I begin to see just how valuable these relics keep my memories and experiences alive. It’s like a proof that I have lived, and these documentation of the things I saw lie safely in the past. When I know they’re there, It becomes somehow easier for me to move on to a new life and a new future. Maybe we write everyday to remove doubts about our existence. We put our memories vividly on paper (or, well, on a blog), to go to sleep knowing that we don’t have to worry about waking up and forgetting. I miss New York City sometimes, but looking at the collection of writings and photographs from my archives, I know I have lived and experienced fully during my time there, and that is very much enough.
I have a whole life ahead of me, and who knows how many more stories of my youth would be valuable and worth telling? I don’t know who’s going to read this or whether I’d even remember having written this at all, but the words I’m typing on my computer are starting to feel more solid and real. There are still a lot of question marks around why there is a deep calling for me to return to this blog and just write stuff. I guess I’ll only know if I keep writing. When a voice gains its shape, it’ll cut through the fog and answers would be clear. Is this all too “woo-woo?” I don’t know. But at least I know if I keep writing, I’ll have something to remember my life by, and that is already very satisfying in itself.
with love,
Ingrid
Ps. Let’s also connect on Instagram. I am planning to grow the account and post more daily updates <3
