People write for countless reasons, and I have my own.

So let me answer the question — Why do I write?

Is it to impress?

I don’t write to impress, and my writing skills are nowhere near excellent. It seems to me that I am not even halfway through my journey to excellence in writing. But I am sure I’ll get there before I breathe my last.

The road that leads to the door of excellence has always been long and winding. It stretches up into the hills of challenges and down into the valleys covered with trees and undergrowth of uncertainties. Robert Frost best describes it as “the road not taken.” But I decided to travel on it anyway.

Do I write to earn money and become famous?

Maybe.

But honestly, becoming famous and earning money are not my primary reasons for writing. Of course, I need money — and it would be hypocritical to say otherwise. Who doesn’t want more numbers to the farthest north of the first digit in their bank account?

But can writing actually earn you money?

It can — especially if you are a scriptwriter for a popular TV network, or a novelist in the league of J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, or Stephen King.

In my case, writing has become a secondary source of income. I get paid for some of the articles and papers I write. When I began writing as a young man, I never expected it would someday put extra money in my pocket. Like many skeptics, I used to think there was no money in writing. I was wrong.

The university where I am employed gives additional evaluation points and cash incentives to professors who publish research in internationally indexed journals. Professors may also apply for research grants, securing funds with the expectation of publication within two to three years. The compensation is quite handsome, making the hard work of research writing more than worth it. There is also an honorarium for articles contributed to the university publication.

I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to hone my skills, possibly add to the sum of existing knowledge, have my works read, and get paid in the process. So I have been publishing in international journals and contributing to our university publication — not because my university requires it, but because I consider it a professional obligation.

Once in a while, individuals also commission me for writing jobs. Sometimes I do it for free, especially for loved ones and dear friends. There were times I was promised payment but received nothing. I was even duped once by an online news organization that never paid me a single cent for the articles I wrote for them.

I consider the cash incentives a reward for doing what I love. But it is not all about money, and money is not why I write.

The rewards that writing gives me are hard to quantify. They are, in a word, transcendental. That is not me trying to sound spiritual or philosophical — that is simply how I feel.

What about fame? What about the accolades?

No.

In fact, when I write and allow people to read my work, I put myself under the microscope. I am placing myself in the line of fire — especially if among my readers are unforgiving members of the grammar police who shoot on sight anyone whose written English is perforated with errors. When they start firing, there is nowhere to hide.

So instead of accolades, I sometimes get negative comments. A friend once told me he would never write for any publication or post his writings on social media for this very reason — he feared negative comments and the embarrassment of being corrected for grammar mistakes.

In my case, criticisms and corrections are welcome. I won’t die from a grammatical error. I have already received plenty of corrections and — as you can see — I am still here, still writing, still alive and kicking. If someone calls my attention to a mistake, I appreciate it. Just break it to me gently and constructively, please. But if not, that is fine too. I put it down to experience and carry on.

The reason erasers were invented and keyboards have backspace keys is simple — nobody is perfect.

I keep rereading my published work — on this website and on social media — to catch and correct errors. It is an ongoing process.

People may read or disregard what I write. If they read, a million thanks. If not — no hard feelings. And if you have reached this point in the essay, I am genuinely grateful. Please, do continue.

I have received wonderful comments for some of my writings. Though I acknowledge those comments may have been either meritorious or simply generous, they mean a great deal to me.

But not all reactions have been kind. Some of my works have angered people who felt personally alluded to. Writing can be a magnet for trouble — the journalists who have been killed or gone missing are sobering proof of that.

I remember clearly the time I wrote a satirical poem in Filipino — about a wolf in sheep’s clothing — while working at a college run by a religious congregation. The parish priest who felt alluded to (and I was indeed alluding to him) reportedly asked my superior, a nun, to summon me to her office. He was dissuaded, however, and I would not have agreed to meet him anyway. Why? That poem had nothing to do with my employment. My being a writer exists outside the lines — vertical and horizontal — of any organizational chart. The priest had no authority over me. He never bothered me again. But I wrote him another poem anyway — Habit and Habit.

My quatrains in Filipino have also brought me some colorful moments. I have lost a friend or two — or three, perhaps more — over poems posted on social media. Once, I posted a quatrain and a friend liked it. Nearly a year later, I reposted the same quatrain and that same friend was furious — his wife joined the fray, and the two of them came at me together. We talked it through, he apologized, and we moved on. But it was a lesson in how words, even old ones, can land differently depending on the season.

My writings that put my political beliefs on full display have also cost me dear friendships.

So then — why do I write?

Is it for the likes, the reactions, the compliments?

Not that either.

Those things make me happy, and I am deeply grateful to friends who take the time to read, react, and comment on my work. But they are not the reason.

Then why? Why do I write?

It is difficult to explain with a single answer. Perhaps it is best understood through a series of questions: Why do people eat when hungry? Why do they drink when thirsty? Why do they take medicine when sick? Why do they laugh? Why do they cry?

There is a kind of hunger within me that only writing can satisfy. There is an insatiable thirst in my soul that is quenched only when I read what I have written. I suffer from a mysterious illness that disappears only when I translate into sentences and verses the thoughts and feelings that flood me in the quiet moments of my life.

Writing is my endorphin.

I must release my pain, my anger, and my disagreements through writing — or they will endlessly haunt me. When I feel wronged, I do not respond with violence. I respond creatively — through poems, sometimes satirical, often through anthropomorphism.

When the spirits of Shakespeare and Elizabeth Barrett Browning cannot be summoned to help me express what I wish to say in verse, I turn to the way of Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne — I write essays. When I prefer not to be direct, when I want to hide my feelings behind symbolism and between the lines, I follow the path paved by Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant — I write stories.

I do not keep quiet when I notice human folly in those around me. I reach again for anthropomorphism — animals standing in for human irrationality. It may sting. It may anger. But the truth, however bitter, is sweeter than the sweetest lie. Vero nihil verius. Nothing is truer than the truth.

This is not to say I am perfect. I am as flawed as anyone — perhaps more so in some ways. The satires I write are like boomerangs. They sometimes come back and hit me.

Pain is like a prison cell. It is through writing that I break free. As my heart churns out the words, I go through the pain — I feel it, I do not escape it. And when I write the final sentence and place the final punctuation mark, the pain is gone.

Even happiness and satisfaction feel incomplete until I write about them. I need to capture joyful moments in prose or poetry to feel them more deeply — and to be able to relive them whenever I wish.

I need neither material rewards nor accolades for what I have written or will write. The rewards are the essays, plays, poems, research works, and stories themselves. I love and treasure every one of them.

I write not to impress, but to express — my thoughts, my feelings, my ideals. Writing is my freedom. Writing is my happiness. Descartes argued, “I think, therefore I am.” In like manner, when I write, I become more aware of my own existence. No matter how simple, every word I put down gives me a sense of fulfillment.

SCRIBO, ERGO SUM.

I write, therefore I am.