What's The Word?

Pens and pencils; the simple tools that have been used since human beings began communicating with one another. On the surface, they don’t appear to create anything as sexy as the ostentatious oak carvings created by sculptors and carpenters. Pens and pencils don’t beat steel into sharpened blades after escaping the white-hot flames of a furnace. No. Pens and pencils cannot achieve these incredible feats. However, these seemingly innocuous utensils emerge ubiquitous in every corner of every culture. These glorious gizmos create civilizations and eviscerate empires. Persuade people and manipulate minds. Lacerate with lies and triumph with truth… no matter how terrifying that truth may be. This poor fool attempts to master the craft of the abstract, word.

Pens, Pencils, And Other Tools Of The Trade

The unique characteristic of writing seems to be its ability to create artists out of the reader. Simple scribblings regarded as scripture shape civilizations to their zeniths although promises fall short. Us mere mortals differ as much in our interpretation of word as we do in our use of it. Us savages that wield these pernicious pens slash pages, leaving evidence on the fingertips – ink splattered scenes – to leave messages.

This craft remains omnipresent even in an era of instant digital gratification. Every vivid surreal scene that we view on the big screen was dreamed up by some poor soul slaving away feverishly on a keyboard in a dark room next to an ashtray full of cigarettes. The riveting expose’ about the latest scandal was conceived in a lonely office next to an empty bottle of whiskey. That latest hit song that one loves has a half dozen joint roaches and a burnt up spoon lying next to the notepad that spawned it.

It’s as if the craft is a curse. Our philosophy, culture…. Our way of thinking seems tossed by the wayside. Discarded as quickly as a finless shark – the issue remains ignored. We recite platitudes to claim our latitudes and become enamored by the false gratitude that traps these poor damaged fools. And yet, it doesn’t matter… We write scenes that force nightmares to seize. We try to pulverize paradigms but never escape the paradox, aware we cannot succeed without struggle and a pair of dimes cannot dampen the disease of duality, trying to choose between a pair of docs. But still, words find a way, even when away…

The recipient becomes the artist. Writing seems to be the art of art – structured or chaotic. Forever punctuated. And yet, running on declaring the need for questions while exclaiming that metaphors and similes are life, existing as a dream that never ends and began when we met on all fours and grunted similarly. Writing is anarchy – no rules except for those that the writer deems necessary – representing the purest form of self-governance ever achieved in humanity. Most of us poor souls head towards insanity attempting to navigate the river lands or drown in the currents that we swim against.

I attempt to carve out my competition and shape them, and hopefully they will shape me. Pens and pencils… simple, harmless tools that have broken the strongest spirits. Banging away on typewriters and keyboards - click, clack, clickity click clack – with ideas emerging from the ether but chained to the ethernet. Lead leads the way, looking for remote controllers. Thoughts tear tears out of the ducts where hidden emotions scurry about attempting to evade capture. Take another guzzle as one tries to listen to the muzzled truth.

Some can shape shapeless stones with chisels and saws. Others orchestrate opuses with trombones and oboes. And some whittle wood into wonderous works of beauty using files and chainsaws. But pens and pencils… they can teach others these incredible tasks. Pens and pencils can be utilized to sketch a beautiful portrait, open for any soul to observe... but with words the reader becomes one’s own sculptor, one’s own painter and one’s own architect with the only limiting factor being the infinite vastness of imagination. There appears to be no wonder why movies are rarely better than the books they portray. Behind every scene, every setting, every dialogue in every movie... there sits some poor, broken, unrecognized writer.

Everything...

Dangerous… Sometimes societies become dangerous; the environment becomes saturated with oppressive pesticides, leaving the field of freedom of thought barren. However, some of the most enlightening prose was cultivated in the most repressive deserts. Countless souls have succumbed to tyranny quitting their desperate quest for oases Or-Wells. These conditions cause most to descend into madness. In these brave new worlds, Thomas Huxley would be crucified for promoting the evolution of oppression. Solzhenitsyn smuggled his scriptures beyond the borders of a barbaric regime so the world could see the repression. Maybe if we Hunted with a Thompson, we’d be ok. We’d be able to eat without cannibalizing the culture…

With propaganda… Propaganda remains displayed anonymously through the facets of our civilization. And no one knows what’s true which makes minds malleable, ripe for manipulation. Truth wanders lost in the fog of war, scrambling over the contorted corpses of good ideas obliterated by censorship. Climate change, race, war, vaccines, lockdowns, riots – none of it seems to matter because facts are not effective weapons in this war being waged on words. Words are used against their own meaning, innocent shields in this civil war on the battlefield of ideas. The power struggle is real, suffering to quench the insatiable drunkenness.

Seems overpowered…. Yet, some Einstein discovered that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. The Egyptian hieroglyphics carved on the walls of the ancient architectural achievements appear to display the anthropological archetypes that define our astral plane of existence where an arc sits. Kings died on this long arch of justice as revolutionaries that formally lacked Constitutions looked to the Magna Carta to declare their independence. How much Paine did Thomas experience in his quest for common sense? Perhaps Einstein’s theory was incorrect, because, relatively speaking… the strength of human’s will for freedom seems insurmountable. Despite all the suppression, all the torture, and all the assassinations (character and physical) … life seems to prevail and improve. But how?

By truth. And truth seems best expressed through word. These intangible, incredible incarnations of thought have created our reality – past and present, best and worst. The worst seems lost to the past when free thought was a crime, so we decided to meet in the middle and remain best in the present. Our thoughts shape our universe, making the individual the Alpha and Omega… while forever part of the omnipotent One. Everything dangerous with propaganda seems overpowered by truth. But maybe I’m selfish…

Maybe I'm Selfish...

Truth be told dear reader, I intend to exercise the reader’s brain. Much of our civilization appears malnourished despite the abundance of food for thought. The problem, however, lies in the fact that most of this food for thought lacks nutrition. Fast food falsehoods from Facebook flood feeds to feed our fundamental famine only to forestall facts. Preparing pious confirmation bias. In this restaurant, there exist no context courses, for we are served courses with the coarsest ingredients with no critical analysis. With logic lacking in the kitchen, the cooks simply add homonyms to dishes, twisting the diner’s tastebuds with imitation flavor. Reason remains out for the season, still kayaking down slippery slopes while fishing for red herrings. My restaurant displays both sides of the menu dear reader, with all organic ingredients listed – what one sees is what one gets.

But alas friends, I do not portray the entire truth… as I said, maybe I’m selfish. Thinking people seem to make the world easier. Even when we both taste the bitterness of disagreement, common ground can usually be found even in the narrowest of spaces. When people flex their mental muscles, it also forces this wayward writer to remain fit. When I play with words, wordplay can sometimes reveal the Bill showing what one’s word’s worth. And green is always a motivator. Yet, things must die for life to be lush, so I try to fertilize my pockets, transforming them into Presidential funeral parlors. Maybe then I can grow. But I haven’t gotten to the root of the issue yet.

Forgive me dear reader… I cannot tell a lie any longer. The truth is that when I first picked up the pen, I was actually pursuing an outlet for this raging electrical current created by a short-circuited life… my mother’s. One’s mind was in a frenzy full of maniacal thoughts and terrible tendencies. I am alone in this dark and wicked environment, navigating blind and often bumping into the darkest, deepest recesses of one’s mind and carelessly, almost dropping off into the abyss without ever knowing it. The growls of monsters constantly howl in the distance, leaving me in a constant state of panic… and I swear, sometimes I can smell their hot, putrid breaths on the back of my neck.

The pen provides a path, allowing one to map this endless treacherous terrain inside of one’s cranium. The pen provides light, allowing one to view these ghouls that sought (and still seek) to destroy. I can now see the vast forests of ignorance, thick with thorny vines that aim to strangle one. I bathe in the deep rivers of wisdom, flowing with cold truths leaving one refreshed and full of vigor. I see the limitless synapses, sparking with lightening, lighting the way for brief moments in these brainstorms. The more I travel, the more I see of this boundless universe. I now hunt monsters.

I lay traps for them, constructing a house of mirrors confined in walls of reflection while surrounded by a web of lies. I hunt down these imperfections carefully, sharpened pencils in hand and pens in the holster with loaded magazines. However, it’s not like Pokemon, I’ll never catch them all… but I can try. When I capture enough of these demons, I place them on the firing line while they plead for their lives, promising I need them. I fire multiple rounds into each of these goblins, dropping them one by one. Each bullet has an idea etched into it – Humility, Honor, Integrity, Respect, Justice – leaving behind only a shell of its former self. So should any sinister beast slither out of the abyss, they will come upon the rancid, rotting corpses of their brethren with the evidence to let them know what did them in.

So dear reader, maybe I’m selfish, for I map the territory of this haphazard mind alone… but unafraid. The craft of writing saved one’s life and forced one to discover ugly truths and slay beautiful monsters. These pens and pencils paved a potential path to prominence from a formally intricately intertwined jungle. And now these words belong to you reader, to mold, make or manipulate them into whatever one wishes. True, I own these words, but once they are out of my mind, they become open to all interpretations and manipulations in the minds of others. So dear reader… what’s the word?