I've found many reasons to write in my life. I've written while traveling alone, staying at hostels across Italy and marveling at the vibrant kindness of strangers. I've lived in Morocco and Argentina, and I've written through culture shock and through not speaking the language, desperate I'd never understand.
Writing with Purpose
Our culture dictates that good people are productive, and in the Midwest, hardworking people create things that have purpose. Even though I was writing every day, my non-writing time was becoming a contest, between my inner self that delighted in writing for no purpose other than joy, and my social self that was flailing about, looking for an assignment to complete, for something to create.