Essay on Writing

We write because we have to.

We edit, revise, rewrite, re-edit and revise again—for a lifetime if necessary—because we want to, because we have a care so strong for words on paper—open for our contemporaries and posterity to view—that we lose sleep, forget to eat, ignore our bladders, gladly go hours without a drink or an adjustment of our posture because words must be allowed to flow without the distraction of comfort, until the last drop of ink has left the pen in our grip and adhered to the paper on which our literary life is spent—voraciously and quietly absorbed.

When we write, it is God in us manifested on paper. As writers, we have the legacy of God’s creativity flowing through us like a living river of life, having been created in His image.

God gave Homo sapiens words and spoken language. Other animals have the brain capacity to communicate, and many quite handsomely, quite soothingly, quite significantly so. But none other was given the brain, nose, mouth, lips, palate, throat, tongue, jaw, teeth, windpipe, voice-box, lungs, and diaphragm—the ability to move air in such a manner as to make a joyful noise of sound and voice and speech and song and be heard by ears, registered by brains, felt by hearts, and acknowledged by souls as spoken language. None other species can read and write . . . so far.

We write in order to leave proof that—yes! We existed! We were here! We laughed, sang, cried, wooed, thought, fought, felt pain and joy and all sorts of comforts and sufferings. We were alive.

We add to the record of human experience with each drop of ink flowing from the pens in our grip.

Snowy mountaintops bear witness each year as gray clouds take their leave and sunlight makes its triumphant return. One by one, each water droplet leaves its icy home and lands upon a rocky slope. A single, intrepid drop begins the long journey. The water that forms it may evaporate or it may be sucked into the celebrating earth, become lost in its crags and crevices. But the earth’s joy is fleeting and premature. The earth never learns its lesson, taught to it every spring by cracking ice and melting snow.

Each spring, a new first drop of water falls, and we begin again to enjoy the gift of water. Other drops soon follow, and many follow these: they collect; they unionize and fight the dry earth, forming trickles and puddles, pools and lagoons, streams and lakes . . . and rivers . . . and oceans, which the earth must contend with again and somehow contain or be satisfied to not be contained itself.

So it is with writing as with rivers upon arid land. The words form slowly—jots and tittles into words, then thoughts. Sometimes the first of these do not take hold and are lost, like errant trickles of water down a mountain slope in spring. But other words, like other trickles, come quickly to take charge of these posts . . . and others join them.

Human hearts often forget certain truths about humanity, just as the earth forgets the fact of waters in spring. All human hearts forget—to some degree—some truth, or many.

It is the writer, the songstress, the bard, the artist, who must coin a new phrase to say it again to the people—to say, “This is truth and don’t you forget it!” where the politico, the potentate, the pontiff, the professor, and the parent, have failed.

Ben Franklin, a wordist, a literary-minded fellow of cultural and historical significance—even in his own lifetime—spoke of this phenomenon and need in his autobiography thusly:

“Men must be taught as if you taught them not. And things proposed, proposed as things forgot.”

Paul Harvey said Franklin once entertained his guests by reading the book of Ruth; until he told them, they thought it was an original story.

As time progresses, so our means of expression changes, our vernacular evolves. The Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary—like any good one—is expanded and revised from time to time to reflect the culture’s language.

But from the time of the caveman and desert-walkers, of nomads o’er the mountains of civilizations long ago removed, of river-followers, sheepherders, fire-starters, earth dwellers, island hoppers, of longhouse, tent, igloo, teepee, and pyramid peoples—from then until now, the time of computers in classrooms, NAFTA the UN, the Internet, the World Wide Web, e-mail, satellite-linked vide0 teleconferences, and all that lies between: written language, papyrus, scrolls, the Rosetta Stone, the Güttenberg Press, the KJV, pens and chalkboards—from that time until now, the topics have not changed.

Writers must still speak about love & hate, violence & peace, dreams & dreams deferred, promises & broken promises, good & evil, food & water, God & Lucifer, rocks, trees, soils, survival, nakedness, children, learning, war, gravity, thirst, hunger, disease, lies, revenge, addictions, suicides, murders, treasures, blankets, breads, warmth, cold, rain, wheat, grass, meat, salt, . . . or at least with these things in mind.

Every human being has had to deal with fire, water, food, urination, defecation, bathing, clothing, shelter, a higher being, sex, death, birth, and language.

For all the arguments and theories about human evolution and progress—for all the triumphs proclaimed by the earth, the water still wins. Things have not changed so much. Words flow like rivers of truth because people are, at the most basic level, the same, no matter where one goes—and no matter when. Such, after all, is the definition of a species.

So the poet, the playwright, the rapper, the muralist, the architect, the sculptor, . . . he creates, in order to remind the species—even when his message seems obvious to some, ambiguous to others. She tells her tales, breaking the silence—even when no one wants to listen. He sings his songs and she paints her feelings—and the words, and words through images and sounds, differ, but they all testify to the same basic truths shared by mankind.

The high salt content of the ocean calls to the rivers, “Come home.” So the paper calls the ink home. Call it osmosis or godliness or neither: call it truth.

The writer sees the need and fills it. He sees the scorched earth and yearns to tear down the dam so truth being kept at bay—or having been temporarily forgotten—will return and remain among the people who will listen and drink, their truth-thirst satiated.

To communicate truth is why writers must write. This truth may be the writer’s truth, or a truth directly affecting his neighbor’s uncle’s sister, his city or his nation, but it is truth nevertheless. The writer logically connects truth to his audience.

The successful writer shares the universal truths of humanity, and her readers believe what she says, because their brains recognize it, their hearts feel it, and their souls acknowledge it with an “Amen.”

Part Two

The river teaches us that truth is more pure at its source. Water heading downstream echoes this truth. We climb the mountaintop to find pure wisdom from the meditating old man. We seek God’s guidance.

The river brings us water and sustenance. The waters sustain our bodies and spirits. The waters whisper to us, soothing our cares. The river cools and cleans us, surrounds and hugs us. It brings us food—the fish, crawfish, deer, and bison.

The river is violent at times, as a lioness capturing a morning meal. The river, too, is calm, as a lion stretching in the sun after a morning a meal.

The river brings us newness: new waters, new fish, new companions. From it we gather trifles and goods discarded by others or brought to the river by wind or flood. These become our newfound treasures.

The river transports us. Sometimes it’s a rough ride through the rapids, a journey upriver. Sometimes it’s a ride smooth as a baby’s belly.

The river teaches us to keep moving. My grandmother heard its call, and moved her family over its bridge. My father, he heard this too, and came across The River—swimming.

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