Joan Didion’s essay with the same title has brought me back to an old issue. What have I got to say that has not yet been said, how to even say whatever in this world of artificial intelligence, for, afterall, readers simply ask CHAT GPT for answers to even the simplest, most mundane question?

In fact, this is the prompt I wrote and the ChatBot’s answer led me to Didion, since she wrote an essay with the exact same title.

I wonder at how petty this question can get given that the basic answers are already available. However, when I asked this question the motivation is so that I will like writing more.

why i write at all

Not writing at all has never been an option for me, but why I write at all has escaped me completely. That is, I never asked that question since for me, writing is my job. It is my training. It is my product and my brand, I am without meaning if I can’t write at all. It has been given to me as part of my core identity – that if I don’t do it, then I am nothing.

But a lot of times, I don’t like it – its demand for authenticity, its desire for expression, its guffawing of vulnerability. I should not be unhappy with writing but while I can do it, I don’t earn from it. It has never been a way to financial gain. Which is to say that automatically, I am that starving artist they are talking about if writing is my art.

Then there is that question of if I write at all and nobody reads it, what is the point of writing then? The battle to get published, or at least noticed, the byline to get plastered under any article I’ve submitted is a reward that has always been too difficult for me to get. In fact, I have not had much satisfaction in this area of seeing my byline. I have not been published, I self-published my collection of poetry and this gave me only additional expenses, but no feeling of reward.

writing books still matters much

And today, the setting for writing contributions has completely evolved. There is no more deep competition for one to get noticed. Yet, getting noticed once isn’t the point today. The point is getting noticed and influencing to the point of trending so that one can make an impact.

I believe that books will still do this – leave lasting impact, but influencers using writing to influence get to me. I envy them somehow – how many likes they get, how many reads, how many downloads, how many shares they get. There’s a deep insecurity in content writing because I am not able to reach many – it is not enough to be read by one or two. For a writer, this is actually a failure – so why write at all, this is the question.

Yet, I am into brainstorming and planning some books i still want to write and i am trying to convince myself to make time for book writing. Why persist in this is just something I do, that is, well, what else is there to do? I can write, so then just do it – i tell myself.

not writing is the enemy

But as I’ve said, I could not stop writing. somehow, I try to rationalize this by saying that I have been called to write – but for what, I still have no answer yet. Somehow, writing has given me something to do. I’ve never been idle in that lonely sense of the word because writing has always kept me company. While others may wonder and linger on sad memories, I simply write about my day, and my moments, however trivial and non-eventful, because I have pen and paper and time to kill. And then there’s the question of why I should not write – and the answer is that if I don’t then, time will pass wasted and it will lengthen to days and months and years of sadly looking out to a horizon that I won’t be able to articulate in words.

the robots don’t mind not having a mind

Today, I used two AI bots to write a very impersonal essay, and then I wrote my personal view of the same subject. I posted one similar take but by a different BOT in three separate blogs, and on my non-influential blog, I wrote my authentic take. And I realize that while the AI bots can make me write as fast as I want, it does not give me the satisfaction of this interaction that I get between me and my own mind.

Because writing I believe is just that interaction – a thinking that goes roundabout – out, in, and back again, so that we can live by what we are made to live by. The reason for why I write is simply this roundabout back and forth between me myself and I. Does this matter at all when nobody else sees it or reads it or even looks at it?

Well it is somehow problematic that I am less worried about an audience now than when I was in my thirties. Because I think that is what old age does – it lets you be comfortable in your own skin, and the rest of the others who won’t read you don’t really matter. This is true even as I look with the reason for what I want to do that is writing – because I have stopped getting stressed out about bylines and getting published. The new stress has something to do with the question of how writing can be my lifelong companion as I retire from full time work – whether it will sustain me, even spiritually, since I will turn to it more times than I should when I have ceased to wake up early and travel to school to teach.

Why I write then today is because I am preparing to live the rest of my days by writing. And I hope that I can live a full life by writing given all these AI proliferation of texts done by non-mind agents of language perpetually curating language from the moments and idylls of happy authors.

A friend posted on Facebook that she had another children’s book coming. While she claims she is not a writer, I am certain that she is spending her retirement days writing. Why I keep thinking about this certainty is a manifestation of envy. But other than envy and regret, procrastinations and lack of regular writing are my true enemies. During a celebration of the anniversary of the Christian Writers Fellowship, among all the members present, only I have not published a single book, poem, essay, or story in any other available platform in the past five years. This made me realize that sadness can also come from this, missing those moments of doing what one had so desired to do.

FIRST SENIOR MOMENT: generation gap alert

In a podcast called THINK MEDIA they have instructions on how to set up, sustain, and grow a YouTube channel to success. What makes it different from podcasts dealing with this subject is that the owner is a Christian. His spiels also share how he applies biblical principles to his business venture.

The norm in publishing has changed immensely. Those who aim to write a book has to begin with a marketing strategy that capitalizes on social media presence. They ‘must leverage’ the number of subscribers to their ‘YouTube Channel’ and later on publish an e-book, fully confident about their readers.

These more or less comprise the new, exciting challenges in writing and publishing. The question How to Write As a Christian has become more urgent in this age of Tiktok. Equally crucial is How to Address this generation gap in learning about marketing and publishing in the age of AI.

SECOND SENIOR MOMENT. health alert

I woke up with pain in my abdomen that persisted for a whole day. Apparently, these are the gallbladder stones acting up. I tried drinking my favorite Starbucks brew this morning but I had to throw the rest of the coffee and finished the corned beef pandesal later on. At lunch break, I had shrimp and clam soup with vegetables but left the rice scarcely touched. I drank only tea and warm water because I fear that this pain will get worse.

This morning at the Hospital I consulted with an opthalmologist, a gastroenterologist, an endocrinologist, and an ob-gynecologist. The obstetrician-gynecologist did a pap smear, and prescribed one dose of Funzela to be taken after meals. She wants to see me again next week, after ordering a transrectal ultrasound with a gentle reminder about cancer being asymptomatic.. The endocrinologist, ordered a laboratory test on all the metabolic functions related to my thyroid problem. Urine, blood cell count, cholesterol, sugar, tr4 THs, calcium, potassium, vitamin D — these were ticked in that doctor’s checklist. To have this test, I need to fast for eight hours. A mammography and ultra sound of the breast will follow in this series of medical examinations.

FOURTH SENIOR MOMENT. budget alert

This yearly check-up routine always takes about four to five days, and with pending laboratory tests, need to be pre-scheduled. The opthalmologist prescribed Torvadex for the bacteria on my eyelids. Unfortunately, Mercury drug is out of stock on that antibiotic. Naabak, the twice-a-day eye-drop solution and Optive Plus artificial tears for dry eyes are lifetime eye care maintenance that cost me more than a thousand pesos.

Not everybody can afford a health card. The pap smear alone cost 1400 pesos plus, which the health card covered. The medicines cost me 2000 plus on the discounted prescriptions, and 200 pesos on the undiscounted thyroid maintenance drug. Add the taxi fare and meal allowance during a series of check-ups and you become more convinced of the necessity of a side hustle that pays.

FIFTH SENIOR MOMENT. mortality alert

By the end of this month, I had been to three funeral wakes – the first one was ES’. From the testimonials about this former colleague, I heard new revelations. During his time at work, he seemed slow and unmotivated. But witnesses of his life’s routines gave testimonies of his caring attitude, and his active engagements in sharing the gospel. 

M’s mom, 98 years old at the time of her death, was an old woman with a joyous smile in her funeral picture. A video flashed pictures of her old self playing Angklung as a member of an orchestra. She left a legacy of a love for music to all her children. One picture had all of them, M included, playing a musical instrument in a family concert in church. M’s mom had lived a full life. She was a faithful steward of her gifts — a teacher, she got her Ph.D. in theology in her mid 60s.

Before this wake, another artist’s passing has stirred me up about the meaning of a life lived to its fullest. MA was a poet and a Christian activist who loved and served this country with the utmost creativity and patriotism. She compiled her poetry in a book called A Journey in Verse. Her memoir is a witness to how as a Christian activist, she had stood in the gap in praying and interceding for her country.

How do I live a fuller life in my 60s onward? Hopefully it is a life filled with kindness, like ES’, or in earnest stewardship of gifts like MN’s mom, or with love for the country and its people, like MA’s. This is impossible by one’s own effort. The only way to live a full life is by getting closer and more intimate with God, and to always be still before His presence to hear His Word of wisdom. These senior moments nudge me to live by faith and not by sight, onto a more Christ-filled life.