Writing as Breathing — The Power of Record

Writing as Breathing — The Power of Record

​Writing isn't simply the act of stringing words together. It's about capturing fleeting moments and rescuing oneself from the forgotten. Thierry Guetta, the protagonist of Banksy's documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, wasn't originally an artist. He was an ordinary clothing merchant, but one day, he suddenly found himself holding a camcorder in his hand. The reason was simple: his mother passed away suddenly when he was young, and he later realized he had not a single photograph or video left. He felt a void in the void of his memories, and from then on, he began documenting every moment. He followed street artists, tirelessly capturing his family's daily life and the unfamiliar cityscape.

His documentation, which initially seemed like a simple obsession, was actually a defense against existential anxiety. He believed that only the camera could capture the true reality even in the midst of collapsing time. Writing is no different. We write not simply to express something, but to confront disappearance. Documentation is a tool to fill the void of memory and a process of self-reconstruction. Just as Thierry captured his world with his camera, we capture the afterimages of our hearts with our pens. Writing, ultimately, is about leaving behind small, solid evidence of "I was here."

A deeply personal essay on the meaning of writing — how recording life, much like breathing, becomes an act of survival and truth. Inspired by Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop and the author’s lifelong journey from literary ambition to authentic expression.

Writing is not merely the act of arranging words. It is a way of proving that we are alive — of holding onto moments that would otherwise disappear. In Banksy’s documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, the protagonist, Thierry Guetta, was not an artist at first. He was an ordinary shopkeeper until one day he realized that after his mother’s early death, he had no photos, no videos, no traces of her left. Shocked by the emptiness of that realization, he began filming everything around him. For him, the camera became a shield against oblivion, a way to preserve the proof of existence. For me, writing serves the same purpose.
When I was young, I used to write with the sole goal of writing well. My teacher once told me, “You have such a gift for description,” and I never forgot those words. From that day on, I wanted to be a writer — long before I ever dreamed of being an artist. I still remember the day I told my sister. She quietly walked to the stationery store and came back with a stack of manuscript paper. I wrote my first story on it. The title was Under the Zelkova Tree. It was about an orphan girl who sat beneath a zelkova tree all her life, growing old as she talked to it. Nothing much happened in the story, but in its quietness was my way of seeing the world. At that time, I devoured Russian novels — Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn. Their depth overwhelmed me. After reading them, my own writing felt childish and small. Eventually, I stopped.
When I entered the competitive world of exams, literature felt useless. Writing wasn’t something that helped you get into a good school or find a job. What mattered was test scores, not imagination. I forgot something essential — that writing, like breathing, must be effortless and natural. You don’t breathe to impress anyone; you breathe to live. And that is what writing should be.
Years later, I began blogging. At first, I was afraid. But I wrote a little every day, no matter how simple or imperfect my words were. Over time, I realized that writing is a way of circulating the air inside me. When I stopped trying to write well, my words began to flow like water. The anxiety disappeared, replaced by a sense of lightness and freedom.
Now, I don’t write to be seen. I write to understand why I am here — to trace the map of my own existence. Perhaps chasing fame or recognition would be the faster path. But I gave up that path long ago. Writing has become my best friend, and I don’t want to lose it to the noise of ambition. Writing, for me, is not performance. It is survival — a quiet act of being.
So today, I write the way I breathe: gently, naturally, and without expectation. And as long as I write, I remain alive.