Why Do We Breathe?

There are times when someone would ask you why you are doing what you do. When someone asks about me why am I writing, I simply answer, “Because I like it,” or “Because it helps me release some feelings that I couldn’t get out with just speaking.” The same goes for why I like listening to music so much.

One day in school while we were waiting for our class to start, everyone kept talking about this game between Lakers and Boston Celtics. Everyone just keeps putting their bets on who was going to win. I have no interest about basketball so I didn’t say anything. Besides, i don't even know which is good. Hell, I don't even know which team is which. One of my classmates noticed me not saying anything and she asked me why I don’t seem to like basketball. I replied with, “I just don’t. I don’t get it.” After I said that, this weird thing happened.
It’s not really a flashback or something but I heard myself talking in my mind. I suddenly remembered. That wasn’t the REAL reason. The real reason is being the grudge holder child that I was back then; I decided to not like it because my father likes it so much. Yeah. THAT. It was a weird feeling. It’s like I just caught up with a part of myself, like somewhere along the way there were pieces of me that I left and a piece of me just became a part of me once again. 

Right from that moment, I began to ask myself why I write. Sometimes I get an answer but then later realize that it really wasn't it. I just knew that I love writing, that it helped me so much to get through life and that I want to speak to people through it. Then one time when I was online I stumbled on the REAL reason. I was surfing for a good desktop wallpaper when I saw this image of a character from my favorite playstation game. He was sitting on the cliff where he and his best friend swore that if ever their paths got separated, they would come back there and reunite. A war later on that very same cliff, they were there. Not to reunite and catch up but to finish the war that they led. They've grown so much apart after they got separated and they became leaders of opposing armies. I felt a tug in my heart. And that’s the reason. The reason why I really wanted to write back then when I was still at grade school. It was to let other people feel that pull on my that I felt when I played that one last battle when I was still a kid and that same pull I felt years later as a college student when I stumbled on a mere image of it.  

I could remember trying to write the story of that video game so hopefully I could preserve the beauty of the story and still get that tug feeling in my heart whenever I read it again. I was so young and silly back then. I didn’t even have the ability to write well yet. But at least back then, I know why I want to write. I want to touch other people with my stories. I want to inspire them. I want my stories to tug on their hearts. Just like how other people's stories did to mine.