Writing

I'm writing a blog on writing. I think that's sufficiently ironic and hipster of me, and I therefore think that you should read it if you stumble across this as you travel about your day.

I could potentially insert a poetic quote here about why writing is so beautiful and wonderful, but I think I'd rather just lay it out myself. So here it goes:

Writing reveals the soul. It is the words that we desperately want to be heard, yet lack the confidence to say. It is those parts of ourselves that we wish we could find the words for at an earlier point in time, and yet never seem to possess. It is the power that we hold within ourselves to shape perception, merely through a few letters, spaces, punctuational marks, and symbols. It is our hearts, bared out on paper for the viewer to read, absorb, and potentially be changed by.

Books are particular, wouldn't you agree? As if each has a soul. We crave the ones that relate to our own the most. That's why a book on Bill Gate's life really has no appeal to me at all - I would rather die than read about a genius' love for computers and life to worldwide success in computer engineering. Reading about social justice though, or about the environment, or simply an adventure story, drama, or humorous fictional story is much more appealing, because these are things that relate to my heart. I have forever been drawn to bible verses about poverty, justice, and love for all, and so when I read Shane Claiborne, Tony Campolo, or Mother Teresa, then I empathize with them, with their pleas, with their calls for action and change. When I read about the environment, or about climate change, then I remember my childhood walks through the conservation area, running through waterfalls, camping in the middle of the woods where I heard the crickets, felt the mist from the waves of water crash against the nearby stones, smelled the smoke from the campfire, saw the Northern lights, tasted fresh blueberries straight from the bush. I remember my favourite professors, who were either radical environmental activists, calm and friendly urban planners, or passionate climate change political spokespeople. And it warms my heart.

Writing is more than words - it is the well-thought-out crafting of our souls, charged with our spiritual and emotional selves, that is bared to the world in hopes that someone will empathize with our hearts. It is our call, our collective tool to inspire, encourage, and motivate, to deconstruct and tear down, to empower. It is our hearts, our struggle, our passion, our ideas. Our quest to find truth.

We can tell our greatest stories. Our greatest lies. Our greatest tales of inspiration. And in everything, we reveal a bit of ourselves to the world.