Why I Write

By Izzat Dahelan

There is something deeply frightening about human existence. We are born, we grow up, we meet people, fall in love, build families, work, argue, laugh, and cry. We spend decades living lives that we ourselves may never fully understand. And then, one day, we die.

People come to pay their last respects. Some weep, while others recall the good things we have done. Relatives who have not seen one another for years meet again and shake hands. There may even be a small disagreement over who should take care of what. Such is human nature. Even in the face of death, there are still worldly matters to settle.

A few days later, everything returns to normal.

People go back to work. Coffee shops are noisy again. Roads fill with traffic. The world carries on as though nothing has happened.

At first, our names are still mentioned. Our photographs are kept. Those who knew us may occasionally share stories about the times we spent together.

But time has its own way of erasing memories.

Gradually, fewer people remember us. Children grow up, grandchildren grow old, and the generations that once recognised our faces and voices eventually leave this world too.

Until one day, perhaps no one will know that we ever existed.

That possibility frightens me.

I do not want to be forgotten.

It sounds a little arrogant, doesn't it? As though I consider myself so important that humanity ought to remember me. But what is the point of writing an essay about why I write if I begin by lying about my own intentions?

Yes, I want to be remembered.

Not necessarily through having my name engraved on a building, a road, or a monument. What interests me more is the possibility that long after my death, someone might still be able to read what I once thought.

I want to leave behind thoughts and ideas.

I want to believe that someday, when my body has long returned to the earth, someone might come across my writing and say: there once lived a man named Izzat Dahelan, and this was how he understood the world.

My Admiration for HAMKA

One of the people who inspired my admiration for the craft of writing is Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah, better known as HAMKA.

He was an Indonesian Islamic scholar, literary figure, and thinker who produced an extraordinary body of work. His writings spanned religion, philosophy, history, literature, and society.

What I admire most is his ability to turn thought into writing.

Imagine it. From the countless experiences, books, reflections, and debates that occupied his mind came book after book, eventually read by people from different places and generations.

There is something remarkable about that ability.

A person sits before a sheet of paper, reflects upon something, and then arranges word after word until a book emerges. Decades later, someone who never knew the author can open that book and enter the world of his thoughts.

HAMKA died in 1981, before I was born. Yet his works continue to be published, read, and discussed, including here in Malaysia.

I never knew him personally. I never heard him speak in front of me, much less had the opportunity to ask him a question.

Yet through writing, a person's thoughts can remain present long after the person himself is gone.

That is what fascinates me.

There is another aspect of HAMKA's life that interests me. He once exchanged ideas with Pendeta Za'ba, another thinker whom I greatly admire.

Za'ba, as we know, was more than a linguist. He was also a thinker who wrote extensively about Malay society, education, poverty, progress, and the ways in which people develop their understanding of the world.

Here were two men who lived during roughly the same period, from two regions that are now separate countries, yet whose intellectual paths crossed within the wider world of Malay letters.

I often imagine how fascinating their conversations must have been.

What did they agree upon? What did they dispute? How did they envision the future of Malay society at the time?

I do not know everything they discussed. Nor do I wish to invent answers.

But the fact that both men left behind writings we can still read today makes me think about something.

People die. Conversations end. Encounters become memories.

But ideas that have been written down have a chance to live on.

Perhaps that is one reason I admire people who write so many books. Not because they succeed in producing towering piles of paper on library shelves, but because they are willing to work through their thoughts until those thoughts can be passed on to others.

I want to learn to do the same.

There is also a small coincidence that makes me feel a little closer to HAMKA, despite the decades that separate us and the fact that we never knew one another.

We share the same birthday: 17 February.

HAMKA was born on 17 February 1908, long before I came into this world. I do not believe that sharing a birthday means inheriting another person's wisdom or abilities. If it were that simple, countless people would have become great writers merely by being born on the same day as one.

Still, the coincidence makes me happy.

Whenever I think of HAMKA, I am reminded that a man born on the same date as I was devoted much of his life to reading, thinking, and writing. He left behind an enormous body of work, while I am still struggling to find the right arrangement of words to express my own thoughts.

I do not know whether I will ever produce as many works as he did. Perhaps I will not. But I want to cultivate the same dedication to writing.

We may share a birthday, but our journeys through life are certainly different.

And I believe it is my own journey that I must work to build.

Writing to Contribute to Society's Intellectual Life

Beyond my desire to be remembered, I have another ambition, one that may sound rather grand.

I want to contribute to the intellectual discourse of society.

That does not mean I expect everyone to accept my opinions, much less elevate them into unquestionable truths.

I simply want to take part.

A society does not develop its ideas overnight. The ways we understand education, politics, economics, history, culture, and human life are shaped over long periods of time. Some ideas are inherited from previous generations. Some we defend, some we change, and some we should perhaps have abandoned long ago.

Writing plays an important role in this process.

An idea may begin in one person's mind before becoming the subject of debate among many others. Someone may criticise it, refine it, or develop it into something its original author could never have imagined.

I want to be part of that process.

I want to write about education, history, society, culture, and the questions that trouble my mind. Some of my writings may take the form of reflections, others may be critiques, and still others may emerge from my encounters with people in everyday life.

I do not consider myself someone who has developed a sophisticated understanding of everything.

In fact, I still have many weaknesses when it comes to reading, understanding, and constructing arguments.

But I do not want to wait until I become someone who knows everything before I begin writing.

Because perhaps those who wait until they know everything will never write anything at all.

I imagine that one day, a young person might come across something I have written. He reads it, then shakes his head because he disagrees with my argument.

So he writes an essay challenging it.

I think that would make me happy too.

At the very least, my writing would have prompted someone to think.

I do not need to win every debate. Nor do I want to use writing as a place to conceal the weaknesses of my thinking behind words that merely sound intelligent.

What I want is the opportunity to contribute to humanity's long and ongoing conversation, including conversations that may continue after I am gone.

Writing Is Also Learning How to Think

There is something I have realised while trying to write.

Thinking and writing about what we think are two different kinds of work.

We can spend hours talking about an issue. At a coffee shop, for instance, almost every problem facing the country can be solved before a cup of coffee is finished. Yet ask someone to organise those same arguments into a coherent essay, and things may not be quite so easy.

I am no exception.

Sometimes, an idea appears perfectly clear in my head. But the moment I try to put it into words, I begin to realise how much I do not actually understand.

The first sentence may come easily. The second is a little harder. By the third paragraph, I begin to wonder whether I genuinely have an argument or merely a feeling that I have mistaken for one.

Writing forces me to confront my own limitations.

I have to organise my thoughts, examine my reasoning, reread what I have written, and search for better explanations. Sometimes I have to delete an entire paragraph that I particularly like because, in truth, it contributes nothing.

Through this process, I have begun to understand more deeply why I admire people like HAMKA and Za'ba.

They were not simply men who held opinions. They worked on those opinions until they became writings that others could read, understand, evaluate, and debate.

That is no easy task.

I want to develop the same dedication, even if I never achieve the same standing or influence that they did.

I want to learn to articulate my thoughts clearly, so that something which initially exists only in my mind can eventually take a form that others can understand.

Perhaps one day I will be able to write a book of my own.

Perhaps many books.

But before I get there, I must first learn to write one good essay. Then another. Then return to improve the one I wrote before.

And so it goes.

Before I Am Forgotten

I do not know how many people will read this website.

Perhaps my writings will attract attention. Perhaps some of them will never be read by anyone other than myself.

I do not know whether I will one day become a recognised writer, or simply remain an ordinary person who leaves behind a few hundred essays on an increasingly quiet corner of the internet.

The possibility of being forgotten will always remain.

Writing offers no promise of immortality. Books can be lost, libraries can be destroyed, languages can change, and ideas once considered important may eventually lose their place in human life.

But not writing means denying those ideas even the chance to be discovered.

And so, I choose to try.

This website will be a place where I gather my ideas, experiences, readings, and reflections throughout my life. Some pieces may be good, others less so, and some may even embarrass me when I read them again ten years from now.

So be it.

I do not wish to leave behind a false portrait of a man who was always right. I want these writings to reveal the changes, uncertainties, and development of my thinking.

I write because I am afraid of being forgotten.

I write because I want to contribute to society's intellectual life.

I write because I admire those who devote much of their lives to reading, thinking, and producing books.

And I write because I want to try to do the same.

Perhaps I will never become like HAMKA. Perhaps my writings will never carry the influence of Za'ba's.

But I do not need to become either of them.

I only need to begin my own journey.

One day, I too will die. People will come to pay their respects, and then they will go home. Life will continue. My name may be mentioned less and less, until eventually no one remembers my face.

But who knows? On some distant afternoon, long after my time, someone may open a book or stumble upon an old piece of my writing.

They read a few pages, pause for a moment, and begin to think about something that had never occurred to them before.

I do not know who that person will be. Nor do I know whether they will remember my name after they have finished reading.

But on that afternoon, however briefly, my thoughts will have met theirs.

And for a man who is afraid of being forgotten, that small possibility is reason enough to keep writing.