Hey, sorry about last time.
I was having a mental breakdown, and, as you probably know, it is better to rant on paper than aloud.
Of late, I'm losing track of time as well as of days and dates.
These days, it is not about what day it is but more like what it feels like to be.
Today, for instance, feels like a Saturday.
This is because today I feel like writing. Most of my writing is done on Saturdays.
Why?
I don't know for sure, but it's been a long-standing coincidence. Or maybe because the mind quickly develops rituals of its own.
Anyway, coming back to writing.
As I was saying, most of my thoughts are penned on Saturdays. Be it in the form of a journal entry, a piece of prose, or a poem.
This made me think about something I learned while pursuing my master's in English Literature.
Literature has always been referred to as the artistic and creative expression in established forms of writing such as prose, poetry, novels, plays, and short stories.
It made me wonder: do we really have to write in these established forms to contribute to literature?
Well, not really.
Literature is traditionally understood as a body of written works that deals with human experiences and reflects the culture, values, and realities of the societies in which they are produced.
Let me explain what I mean through something I learned while studying early Puritan American literature.
Early Puritan American Literature was not shaped by embellished language or confined to literary forms such as novels, plays, or poetry.
In fact, much of it survives through journals, diaries, letters, and personal accounts written in plain language.
Their purpose was not to create art but simply to document everyday life as it unfolded.
However, centuries later, those very writings have become invaluable literary and historical documents telling us how people of that time lived, what they believed, what they feared, and how they understood the world around them.
In this capacity, they preserve not just events but the mindset of an era.
If journals, diaries, letters, sermons, and personal accounts, written merely to document everyday life, can later become invaluable literary and historical records, then literature is less about its form than about what it preserves.
By the same reasoning, modern blogs, microblogs, newsletters, and even thoughtful social media posts may one day serve the similar purpose for future generations.
This is why one doesn't necessarily need to write a novel or a poem to contribute to literature.
A sincere documentation of lived experience can itself become literary.
Thus, literature is defined less by its form and more by its ability to preserve human experience.
This is one of the primary reasons I continue documenting my own experiences whether through a blog, reflective essays, or autobiographical writings.
My objective is simply to leave behind traces of myself as well as the time I live in through my experiences neatly documented in a form that is readily available for me to use.
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