Want to change the world? Keep writing.
If you want to change the world, writing is more than enough. Keep reading to see what I mean, then leave a comment to join this dialogue. And don’t forget to check out today’s writing prompt.
If you’re anything like me, you probably find the chaos of our modern world overwhelming, as you’re constantly contemplating your part in it and what you could do to bring about a modicum of peace and order.
There are dozens of protests and boycotts to participate in, events to organize and attend, communal wounds to heal, and so on. Yet all that civic activity can quickly become draining if you don’t periodically stop for a beat to consider what it’s all for, why you’re doing what you’re doing, and how it’s making you feel— then keep writing about it.
Writing will help you fine-tune your own feelings and thoughts about the world, which will allow you to show up in the world with more authenticity, intention, and power.
Instead of joining the noise of ‘hot takes’ and reaction videos and AI slop, you’ll be able to better understand the nuances of what you’re doing, experiencing, thinking, and feeling— and why— when you keep writing, especially if you write every day.
When you write every day, you’ll regularly activate the parts of your brain that think critically and creatively, and as a result learn how to think better. Which is precisely what we need more people to be doing in the world today, in this new age of AI, superficial influences, and reactive content … isn’t it?
Writing a journal entry can help you unpack and process an experience in a way nothing else can, both intellectually and emotionally.
Writing a poem can help you uncover and express a web of complex ideas and feelings, especially those that are hard to define and discuss, in unique, unconventional, and authentic ways.
Writing fiction can help you escape into a world where heroes win and you’re the master of your own domain, which can help you build and articulate the details of a world you actually want to live in, word by word, line by line, page by page.
Writing about any topic can also help you better understand the limitations of your own mind and knowledge, revealing all you have left to learn, as well as everything you may never be able to learn or comprehend.
Writing can also help you understand and appreciate yourself, and others, much better.
What would you add to this dialogue?
How has writing helped you and the person you’re becoming?
Or how would you like writing to help you become the best version of yourself?
Study after study reveals that writing regularly, especially by hand, makes you smarter, more empathetic, more self-aware, and more socially aware. So, why wouldn’t you want to do it as often as possible, or every day, to help make sense of the deluge of competing information and noise surrounding you?
There is no better way to process the world we’re living in, and our part in it, as well as what we can and want to do next in it, than by writing.
Now is the time to start writing and keep writing if you want to change your world, and in turn change the world you’re living in.
And you don’t have to write a magnum opus.
Write about your day.
Write about a favorite memory.
Write a list of ideas you like, or a list of things you want to do before you die.
Write about what and who moves you and inspires you.
Write a love letter.
Write a poem about nature.
Write about why you appreciate birds and trees and want to save them.
Write a fantasy saga about warlords being defeated.
Write whatever keeps you writing.
It doesn’t ultimately matter what you write, as long as you’re writing it authentically and intentionally, as that will be what will allow you to connect to the best version of yourself, others, and the world in which you live.
Writing is so much more than a hobby or a job when done with intention and authenticity.
When done with intention and authenticity, writing can help you figure out who you are, who you’re becoming, who you want to be, how you want to live, and why.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the chaos surrounding us every day. Devices and platforms and algorithms are literally designed to keep us distracted and scrolling and reacting instead of reflecting and thinking critically about what we’re looking at and experiencing and how we feel about it.
And as we get caught up and overwhelmed and trapped in anxiety cycles day after day, it’s easy to forget that real change, real positive change, real lasting positive change, always begins within individuals first—those individuals who take that first step back from the world in which they live so that they might dig deeper and explore the confused simplicity of all their inner nuances that cross borders with their outer world, always starting within. And they do this by writing.
The only way to understand the world and the consequences of one’s actions in it requires one to understand oneself first. And writing gifts such an opportunity, as writing permeates all inner and outer worlds— those worlds we create both in unison and isolation.
Remember that the only way out of something is to write your way through it, or something like that…
What are your thoughts on this topic? What do you write, and what keeps you writing? Leave a comment to join this dialogue, and don’t forget to share this post with others too. Thank you!
© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.
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Today’s Writing Prompt
Writing Prompt: Writing
Write about how writing has changed your life. Or write about why you enjoy writing. Or write a poem or piece of flash fiction about writing.
