Today I was on the bus, pondering life's mysteries (see, life is not so very different in another country), when I suddenly realised why I write, why I chronicle my thoughts and emotions. Simply put, it's because memories of these things aren't very lasting. Feelings are ephemeral, fading with the light of each new morning, and very soon what you want to remember is forgotten.
Sometimes, it's better this way. To live in the here and now, and be focused on what I need to do - many times I wish I could be more like this, rather than living with my head in some obscure cumulonimbus of its own. Better not to dwell in the past, especially if it's painful or bittersweet.
But as it turns out, writing is precisely what we turn to to capture our reveries, our caprices, our very souls. Reading a book by a master of the language lifts us up to greater heights, or acts as a kind of catharsis to our own repressed emotion. Writing for yourself is no different. You don't have to be particularly eloquent. A few choice words suffice to trigger a torrent of recollection.
It's like mother says - if you think you'll forget it, write it down.
A chronicle of nose growth
'...changing the form of one's mission's almost as difficult as changing the shape of one's nose:
they are, each, in the middle of one's face and one's character - one has to begin too far back.'
― Henry James. The Portrait of a Lady.
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