As a child, I always had notebooks with me in which I jotted down ideas, stories, sentences that I had read, wise words that I had heard, reflections that I had made to myself. As I grew older, I discovered, beyond this childhood pleasure, the benefits of writing. Clear your head on a sheet of paper. Organize your ideas. Take distance, height.
Posted at 10:00 a.m.
In our lives, which are too often hectic, we no longer allow ourselves this downtime to simply reflect or to clarify our thoughts. And yet, taming what swirls within us allows us, seeing it black on white, to better decide, understand and define our environment, to face ourselves and the decisions we may have to make.
You will have understood that I am not talking here about public writing, but simply about what one can do for oneself. I am not talking about talent or literary technique. Because writing can only be a way to let off steam, but first and foremost, a way to take a step back.
Through the mad rush of lunches to prepare, homework and lessons, busy workdays and late-night emails, writing means succeeding in creating a space-time for thinking.
Between children, colleagues, partners, friends and loves, it is first and foremost to be with oneself. It is a privileged moment that brings more than pleasure. Writing brings clarity, substance, perspective. Even today, when a problem seems insurmountable to me, it is with the written words that I succeed in appropriating it, in understanding it better. To dissect it, to see solutions emerge.
Writing for oneself, yes, but also as a powerful means of communication. While hastily written emails have trivialized writing, while social media offers us the worst as well as the best, we forget that this precious exercise has the power to structure and explain a complex message. We don’t do it enough, but, in the workplace for example, taking the time to write a confusing concept or an imprecise directive into a coherent and unifying statement greatly facilitates the work of the teams. Things that are hard to say are sometimes best delivered after they’ve been written. Words of love too…
But writing can be even more than all that. It is a magnificent vehicle for exchanges and debates.
How many times, in the pages of this newspaper or another, has a column, a text, an opinion piece led me elsewhere, sensitized me to another version, to a new angle or to a different position?
What richness that through words, we can reach the other in his deepest convictions.
And, inevitably, writing is very revealing of who we are. Writing sometimes, rather than saying, gives us the opportunity to ask ourselves. It is an exercise that is not necessarily easy. The choice of words is important. Find the right word. Identify the one that makes it possible to specify, to nuance. Add the sentence which, intellectually, prevents us from making a shortcut. Or, on the contrary, withdraw one to avoid repeating yourself. It’s a real meditation session on what you really want to express. And it is above all a great pleasure that we no longer offer ourselves much.
Writing is not the privilege of the writer or the journalist. It is within everyone’s reach. All we need is a paper and a pencil. Or a keyboard, depending. Let’s take advantage of the holidays to write. Write us. Letters, ideas, reflections, for oneself or for others. This precious time that we grant each other can be an opportunity to walk in the shoes of the other. To change your mind. To give us the right to reconsider our positions. To adopt the nuance, this necessary concept, but which is so rare in this era of polarization. Let’s rediscover the pleasure of playing with words. Let’s rediscover, this summer, this happiness that is writing.