Standing naked and alone, words are just words.
They are strange black marks on white paper aching to say something to someone. We humans do a lot of simplistic black marking these days in our emails and text messages, and quite frankly, use this shallow modern day symbolism to cover up what we’re really saying. These words are often written hastily without much consideration, depth or meaning, and they do little to enhance truth and soulful interaction.
One of my favorite lines comes from the 2010 movie, “Ghost Writer.”
“All the words are there, they just aren’t in the right place.” That was Ewan McGregor’s character when he first previewed the book he was to re-write for a famous “illiterati.”
Great writers can transmit subtle energies and amazing messages through their expertly placed words. Good writers and speakers paint incredible pictures to create allegories with their words; they make love to us with well-crafted sentences, cohesive paragraphs and integrated chapters. Writers are some of the most amazing artists, who, like black and white photographers, capture the essence of life in varying shades of two non-colors. The words they choose have the ability to call on the primal and intuitive qualities of the brain, deep inside readers’ personal plays of expression.
Writers are wordsmiths, courageous and willing, as they allow everyone who reads to lay brushstrokes on their work.
Yet no matter how enticing the prose, when we are half-asleep with the book on our breast, if the paint is too thick or too thin, if we read the words with personal dogma and projection in place, we will most certainly miss the message. This level of ignorance is not really a reading and writing problem, and our communication issues are not the fault of writers.
What would Homer and James Joyce feel about that level of responsibility, or that lack of receptivity.
No, everyone isn’t a writer or even a reader. Though we do all have the innate ability to listen with openness and care, allowing the words of another to resonate with the intentions of their personal stories and to stand alone. We all have the heart to put judgements aside if we choose it. We all have imaginations, we are all inspired by the same creative source, someplace deep inside.
If we are still, if we move ourselves out of the way, we can actually sense the transmission of the artist, feel the essence of the words, and hear the heartbeat of their lost and naked souls.
