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Someone told me the other day that, as a writer, I have a duty to always say what I think.
Aside from the fact that I don't feel under any such obligation, I'm not sure it's possible to speak one's mind and then simply turn spoken words into text; certainly it's a far more difficult task than non-writers imagine.
For as Kafka pointed out, whilst thought, speech, and writing all emerge from (and proceed into) the same darkness, we write differently to how we speak; speak differently to how we think; think differently to how we feel - and, indeed, think differently to how we think we think and how we think we ought to think.
To put this in a Nietzschean nutshell: We knowers are unknown to ourselves - and that's why it's only naive or stupid people who are sure of themselves and their opinions; who pride themselves on their sincerity and believe they can instruct others on their duty.
Writers, like quantum particles, are bound by the principle of uncertainty.
We write for many different reasons. It can be an escape from self or an extension of self or a validation of self or to avoid the self - depending on our mood and need at the time. I guess there is an expectation that anyone who has taken the time to write does so because they have something to say, and this is where the duty observation comes in.
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