Mengapa aku menulis?

Tergugah setelah membaca buku "Letters from Turkey" karya Faris BQ. Seorang penulis yang menuangkan beberapa kisah tentang kehidupan yang dilaluinya di Turki.

Membaca kisah-kisah yang berada di halaman-halaman awal buku tersebut, beberapa pertanyaan sempat terbesit dalam fikiranku.

Bukan sulap apalagi sihir, Penulis seakan mengerti akan adanya pertanyaan yang ingin kusampaikan padanya.

Ketika sampai pada akhir halaman aku menemukan jawaban akan pertanyaanku.

Pertanyaanku sederhana, "mengapa Penulis menuliskan semua cerita ini pada buku yang ku pegang?"

And here it is...

I write because I have an innate need to write.
I write because I can't do normal work as other people do.

I write because I want to read books like the ones I write.

I write because I am angry at everyone.
I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing.

I write because I can partake of real life only by changing it.

I write because I want others, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey.

I write because I love the smell of paper, pen and ink.

I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else.

I write because it is a habit, a passion.
I write because I am afraid of being forgotten.

I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings.

I write to be alone.
Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why,
I am so very, very angry at everyone.

I write because I like too be read.
I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page I want to finish it.
I write because everyone expects me to write.
I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf.
I write because it is exciting to turn all life's beauties and riches into words.
I write not to tell a story but to compose a story.
I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but - as in a dream - can't quite get go.

I write because I have never managed to be happy.
I write to be happy.

_Orhan Pamuk_

Dan tulisan Orhan Pamuk ini pun menjadi alasan mengapa aku menulis :)