I know many people that get by just fine without writing much of anything. They are productive, reliable, rational people who lead very full lives (guessing on that last part, but I suspect it is true). Writing is not really a "natural" act like speaking is. And all of the rules that are supposed to be followed in writing, what's up with all that? I have heard more times than I can count from people that don't like to write. They usually give me strange looks when I say that I love it.
That is really not the whole truth for me, though. Writing is an essential part of who I am. Words have long been a comfort and a refuge for me. There are times when I get uber stressed out and behave like an idiot (short-tempered, things like that) to my wife. The vast majority of the time, those episodes can be traced to a lack of writing in my personal life. I'm not talking about writing an email or a grocery list. I'm talking about writing my stories.
Writing is a fundamental part of my DNA. I write to relieve stress, create stress, unwind, wind up, clarfiy, and confuse my own thinking. I know some folks don't like dichotomies, but there are a lot of them in my head, and writing helps me get them down. Writing has been the one constant in my life since puberty. Everything else in my life has come and gone, changed, morphed into something else, or been proven irrelevant in some way or another. Writing has always been there for me, though. Writing is as essential as food and water. I could go for a while without food or water, but why would I do that to myself? I always ask myself the same thing when I come back to writing after an absence: Why did I stay away? There isn't a reason that is good enough.
So why do I write? I write because it is a part of me that goes deeper than anything else. I write because it completes me on a level that I can't reach any other way. I write because I have to. I write becaue I love it. I write because I am a writer.