Writing

I have been thinking about why so many people today, especially the young, are such poor writers. Perhaps it is that communication between the mind and the soul has been diminished. This inner conversation with oneself, which is the essential element of thinking, has been crowded out of our lives by constant talking, game playing, texting and the like activities we do every day.

The soul is the great mentor of the mind. One's individual soul exists outside the body and informs and animates the mind. It is in this way that the mind is a reflection of the soul. When the mind is severed from the soul by all the distractions we allow into our lives, one's individual being, the spirit, is diminished.

All great writing is a conversation between one's mind and one's soul. Both inform each other although the soul is the more alive and aware of the two. Great writers must be individualists because writing is the statement of the one. (the trend in schools to teach "group writing" is an atrocity and an abhorrence to me. I don't even know what "group writing" is) It takes directness and boldness to write well.

It is directness and boldness that are the essential tools for the writer. It is the conversation in one's head that the directness emerges from. Another word for this is lucidity of thought. It is the strength of the soul that animates and directs the conversation from whence the boldness comes from. It is one's vocabulary that gives one the ability to focus that directness and boldness toward a particular end. The vocabulary of the average teen today is a shambling mishmash of half phrases and words with no thought behind them. Sometimes it makes me cry when I listen in on a conversation among teens, especially the boys.

We must restore the conversation in our own heads in order to be great writers again.

John.