Why Don’t People Who Have a Story to Tell Tell It?

 A few years ago, I was one of those people. Plenty had happened in my life, yet much of it remained known only to me. At the time, I had little inclination to write about it. Why on earth would anyone want to hear my story?

It was only when I became rather isolated in Bulgaria that my thinking began to change. With limited conversation skills in Bulgarian, there was no easy outlet for daily gossip or the tales from earlier in my life that might otherwise have found their way into conversation. I suppose turning to writing was almost inevitable. The laptop became the listener in my native tongue.

I can therefore understand people who have no urge to put their stories or ideas into print. Writing had hardly seemed an obvious thing for me to do either, until my circumstances gave me a reason to begin. There are also those who want to write but never get round to it, though that is a slightly different matter.

Another reason to start was the prospect of having something to show for the time I spent. I see many people spending most of their free hours watching television or playing computer games, with nothing much to show for it afterwards. Each to their own, I suppose. For me, having words on a page appealed because they would still be there when I returned to them. There was also the possibility that someone else might read them.

It does seem a pity, though, that some people I know have lived through things many others would be interested to hear about, yet see little reason to write them down. I am thinking of ordinary people whose lives have taken unpredictable turns, or whose philosophies of life interest me. Fame and wealth have very little to do with that interest.

Perhaps some of them have the same doubt I once had about whether anyone would want to hear their story. I would happily read what they had to say, including the parts they might think too ordinary to mention.