Today there is so much that is written to capture human attention to sell advertising that a lot of content just does not seem to be good to me. There is a lack of gravity in the thought process.
The words that you read, or listen – should speak to your heart or to your brain. Every sentence should make you discover something in the world that you yourself have not discovered or felt.
It should lead to the birth of an emotion inside you that you never knew existed. Great writing would make tears emerge out of eyes, laughter from inside of heart and give you goosebumps. Now goosebumps are amusing – you never really know what makes you get goosebumps. It almost feels like a divine intervention.
When you have goosebumps, you feel like some invisible god has reached out to your soul and shaken it from within.
You don’t know what you are feeling or see any reason behind why you are having that feeling. You realise that your brain is not in control of this emotion. Since your brain is not in control of this emotion, you are not in control of this emotion. Clearly, your existence has been over-powered by an invisible hand. Or to say it more kindly, you are having a divine touch at the moment.
Basically great writing can connect you to your existence, to your soul.
Now that is the kind of writing that I want to read.
I had the chance to listen to this great talk between Conan O’Brian and Ken Burns. This is a great talk about writing, history and more. If you have some time today, you can listen to this.
One of the quotes that I really liked from the talk above was from Teddy Roosevelt –
Black Care can rarely catch up to a rider who is fast enough.
which means that you can outrun your daemons. You can outrun your daemons.
Now read this quote again –
Black Care can rarely catch up to a rider who is fast enough.
Teddy Roosevelt wrote this sentence after both his wife and mother died on the same day and he was really really sad and surrounded by his daemons and the he wrote this really powerful sentence.
Black Care can rarely catch up to a rider who is fast enough.
I am pretty sure that a man, who can write such lines after a great personal tragedy can find the strength to endure the pain. I think his words are divine and he was being soothed by a divine being who put such thoughts into his existence.
Now, all of us have the opportunity to feel the power of human endurance, of hope and dreams when we read such sentences.
And that is why, I love great writing. May there be enough of great writing because we don’t need lots of it. Because even a little bit of great writing would satisfy your soul more than lots of mediocre words. Its not the number of words that matter, its the emotion born in your heart that is going to last forever, till the end of your existence.
Amen to great writing.
neeraj's 