My Gift of Writing: Gratitude for the Ability to Express and Create

At the end of the fifteenth of November, I sit in front of my laptop thinking of the many things with which I have been blessed. Today, I have to say I am grateful for the ability to express myself in the art of words. Some people have conversational skills, some people have skills with a paintbrush, and some people have skills with a camera. All of these people have the ability to create. They have the ability to take a blank slate or canvas and make beauty out of what other's would see as nothing. Where some see the nothing, artists and creators see potential and possibility.

For me, a blank screen or a lined piece of paper holds vast amounts of possibility. There is adventure
between the blue lines of lined paper. There are princesses who don't need a prince to save them, but in the end, the princess saves the prince. In every moment of creating and producing the written word, there is a God-like moment of creation. I get to be fate; I get to be judge, jury, and executioner or angel of mercy. I have the God-like ability to create a world and the people within that world. The possibilities are endless when it comes to writing.

Not only am I able to connect and create worlds and lives, but I can also use my words to inspire or to attempt to engage people in conversation. I can attempt to use my words and my thoughts to make people reconsider their views about others. I can hope that through my writing they could see beyond race, gender, sexual orientation, and even spiritual belief. And I am grateful to be a part of a group of people that use words to create, inspire, inform, and engage others.

The final reason that I am grateful to be able to express myself with my writing is because I am not a conversationalist. I am an introvert. I look inward and observe the outside world. I listen and occasionally offer advice, but usually, I just listen. Listening has always been one of my best qualities. However, there comes a time in my introversion I feel like I have something to say and speaking it just doesn't seem like the natural thing for me to do. So, I write and I create something from nothing.

I am grateful for the ability to express myself. I feel that the universe looked on me and offered me this gift as my means to expression. I am grateful to the universe for this gift. I am grateful to all of my mentors, professors, and teachers who have helped me to hone my gift to a sharper point. I have a ways to go before my pen will prick the hearts of the reader, but I am grateful for the journey I have been on. I am grateful. Namaste.

What are you grateful for?

Write On: Writing for the Pleasure and Joy of Writing

"I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think." These are the words of Rumi, a poet and Sufi mystic. As I contemplate what he said and I ponder my writing, I wonder what are my true intentions in writing. Is it the pure joy of writing, not caring who reads it or what someone reads? Or do I want to be heard,  editing what I say so that people will read it and understand?

I was just thinking about why I write the other day; I was asking myself why I keep writing if so very few read what I am writing. Truth be told, I think my ego is seeking the notoriety of being a writer, a philosopher, and a free thinker. My ego is seeking recognition for the things it thinks up. So, I, for a time, have been writing to appease my over-inflated ego.

Now, however, as I think about Rumi's quotation, I want to be like the bird and, instead of singing (though singing may be just as cathartic as my writing), I want to write for the pure joy I find in the release of frustrations, anger, stresses, negative emotions, love, joy, and other positive emotions. I want to write what needs to be written for the healing release of emotion and pure thought energy. I want to write as though I don't care who is reading it and without a care as to what they think about my content within my penned words.

There are people I have heard state that laughter is the best medicine and, while I agree with this statement because there is nothing like a good laugh, I would add that there is nothing like the cathartic and medicinal release of scripted and penned words in the release of emotion (positive or negative) in a harmonious and non-violent way. The written and harmonious words can lift and enlighten not only the writer, but it can also give release and awareness to those who happen to stumble on your words.

To Rumi's words of " I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think," I would add that although the bird may not care who its audience is or what they think, the harmonious song the bird sings affects the listener in ways the listener may not have expected. The same can be said about the writer; he/she may not care for the who or the what, but the reader may become affected by the words and continue on with their day in heightened states of thinking and being. So, I say, "Singer sing on. Dancer dance on. And writer write on." Namaste.