"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"
That was always a fun comeback as a 7 year old...an easy one to resort to. Really stickin' it to 'em with that one. Yet, after I would use it, I always felt like I was trying to convince myself of it more so than the punk cousin I was trying to get back at.
The effort to protect children from one another's harsh and impulsive words is noble and good, yet the statement itself is such a lie. Break my bone, and I'll forget once it's healed. Say something to me, and I will carry it with me. If intended to hurt, the possibility is high that you will break my trust, break my self-esteem, and break my heart.
Words, especially written words, are powerful. They have the power to transform minds and sequentially the lives of people. They can plant small seeds of thought: ideas that the movie Inception demonstrated can be parasitic: taking over one's mind and life.
Both for the good and sometimes for the bad, words are powerful.
With this power, writing inevitably bleeds into our social world. The spoken word is an obvious and necessary aspect of social activity, but writing itself affects us in a more subliminal, but no less impactful way.
On a basic level, the ability to write and create something available to others is crucial in our holistic development as humans. The act of writing empowers us as we have within us an ability, no matter the situation or circumstance, to affect others. It gives us a voice and a way to bring into the open what brings us joy or weighs on our minds. This then opens a venue for relationship with others.
As we share in the vulnerable experience of bleeding our thoughts and feelings onto page and allowing others to read, we find shared experiences and a cure to the loneliness that results from feeling imprisoned in one's own mind.
We find friendships and we find life - a step towards a more intimate and rich social network.
My own experience with such empowerment and even healing that comes from the ability to communicate in this way drives me in wanting to see this manifested in those who have no voice: the poor who society doesn't see as valuable enough to educate. I want to help free them from the imprisonment they feel: to give them a voice.
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