Words about words

What is writing, anyway?

Dear reader, I have a question for you.

What is writing?

There are so many definitions. Using the alphabet, of course. Building blocks of sentences to promote ideas. The communication of facts and fiction, spoken by silent ink and computer screens.

Words, always words. Words and words and words. Up and down, left and right, marching like tiny ants on their way to the anthill. Flying like busy bees, each one carrying meaning like pollen, spreading it around our beautiful world, encouraging things to grow. 

But it's more than that. It's not just the curve of the letters, the flow of typeface or ink scrawling from one side to the next. It's not just adjectives and verbs, subjects and prepositional phrases. Those are the bones, the structure that all writing comes from, but that's only the foundation. What happens afterwards - the building process - creates magic.

Writing is a uniquely human experience. We, alone, in this enormous world, have figured out a way to make markings that satisfy our need for speech. A voiceless communication to spread ideas, to converse with neighbors and strangers, to make ourselves known in a wide universe filled with stars and galaxies of beautiful planets and unknown creatures and everything else we haven’t discovered yet. 

There is a world out there, a space out there, a galaxy out there, and we have created words. 

Words unite us. Words divide us. Words have cut and sliced and healed and mended, with a handful of sentences and a pocketful of vocabulary. Wars have started and ended over words. Debates and conversations - using words, about words - have split the mightiest among us. Jokes and laughter and comedy, using words, poke fun at the most serious topics we have. 

Words upon words upon words. Communicating, recording, transcribing, illuminating. Helping us connect with each other. We crave connection. We seek our tribes. We want to know that in this big space - this planet, this galaxy - we are not alone. 

It falls to us, and anyone who puts a pen on a page, to tell the stories of our people. Communicate for those who cannot, speak of problems that others cannot, and record joys that others cannot. We are the storytellers of our generation, the record-keepers for a future day and age. We are the ones who can say yes, I was there, and here’s something that happened.

We put words together. We construct sentences. We build palaces out of dictionaries and thesauruses and use them to reach the stars. 

If you know someone who wishes to write, or you yourself wish to write, encourage them and be encouraged. The world needs more writers. Everyone ought to write, for no one person shares the same perspective as another, and we need all of them if we’re going to survive this cruel thing called Life. Tell me stories of what you did as a child, how you like to spend your evenings, how you take your tea. Tell me why you hate scary movies, where you hide from your fears, and why you prefer the color blue. Help me unpack the wonder that is humanity, and tell it to me your way. My way will only get me so far. Tell me the stories I can't make up on my own. You have to. They’re not mine to tell, they’re yours. 

If you want to write, then write. Let it flow from you like a river, hopskipping from one stepping stone to the next. Take giant leaps from one side to the other, and see if it jostles any forgotten ideas from your pockets. Tell me about the stars, the other planets, the places we haven’t been. What lives at the bottom of the ocean? What hides on mountaintops tall enough to touch the clouds? What dwells beyond the stars, in Heaven or Hell, in galaxies we haven’t dared to find? 

Tell me a story. It doesn’t have to be good. Just tell one, and you’ll get better in the telling. Then do it again, and again, and over time you’ll discover that you’ve gotten quite good at this. Writing is muscle memory, and when you realize how you like to put words on a page, it becomes easier. It will never be perfect, and it will never be exactly how you imagined it, but it will be beautiful nonetheless. For it is writing, and it is yours, and if you are a storyteller, it is the legacy that you will leave behind. 

This is what it is to write. It is beautiful, it is magical, and at times, it is immensely frustrating, but it is ours. It belongs to all of humanity, in every language, and everyone deserves the chance to try their hand. For how else will we know what being human really is?

Tell me, dear reader: What is writing, to you?

<3 Olivia

(Photo by Ylanite Koppens, Pexels)