On the need to write

A good friend and longtime correspondent sent me a quote from Henri de Lubac's Paradoxes of Faith on the subject of writing: "...the ideal would be to write nothing but what one needs to bring out of oneself, under the necessity of liberating oneself from it, in some way, by bringing it to light."

I'm not sure about all that. In many regards, writing is like a form of exercise, and the ability to do it well depends on whether one is practiced at doing it. One must maintain one's writing muscles, or they will atrophy. And one must keep one's writing tendons flexible through frequent practice, lest they snap when subjected to major stress. Another reasonable metaphor would be constipation. De Lubac suggests that writing should only happen when one let oneself get spiritually constipated, whereas we know the virtues of a diet full of good fibers and a digestive system that regularly gets stuff outta there. 

If you are constantly trying to triage wheat and chaff, you could start thinking "does this need to be written?" And what is the nature of need here, anyway? There's always something going on, some days good, some days not so good, but there is always a need for reflection on it. And so we find ourselves here, yet again, dear Reader.