I also did a great amount of writing while doing research. It gave me the opportunity to meet and talk to people other than family, but also to explore my own memory deeper by comparing it to the memories of others who were in my home town during, for example, the political transition from socialism to a nationalistic "democracy" or during the bombings.
A man can spend his whole existence never learning the simple lesson that he has only one life and that if he fails to do what he wants with it, nobody else really cares.