People write for various reasons. We write to comply with something requiring tangible results, e.g. a business report or homework. We write to evidence our involvement, e.g. narrative or reflection. We write to earn a living, e.g. for content writers and office employees. We write to remember, e.g. our cute sticky notes and social media posts. We write to create situations which for some reason do not happen in reality, e.g. fiction. We write to release our thoughts or emotions, e.g. diary. It is almost automatic that when asked what a writing is, we mean alphabet written in physical or digital paper.
But there are people who are not privileged to learn how to write or do not write in the same physical manner as normal people do. They should not be deprived of the privilege to officialize their opinions just because they cannot write them down. Of course not. Writing is not just putting glyphs on paper or some other medium. Even the blind can write and read. We have to transcend beyond the literal meaning of writing.
It sounds absurd, at first, to call "write" something but not make it tangible. But, we "write" memories in our brains. We "write" impressions to the people we meet. We "write" our fate through our choices.
But of course, context matters. If your boss wants you to write down a report, you cannot argue that to produce something intangible or that you have "written down" the report in your heart. That's irresponsible.
An exemplar would be Stevie Wonder, who was born blind, but emerged as one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time. I do not know if he physically wrote his songs through pen and paper or whatever medium, or if he had an assistant to write words he dictates. But, I am sure that he had thoughts and ideas, and he wrote them in his mind, and later in history. His songs remain in our music industry up to now.
Another would be Helen Keller, world-renowned author of 12 books. She was blind and deaf since childhood. She devised sign language for home use and later attended formal education to learn Braille and tactile language. We could guess her books were probably written in Braille and was later transcribed into many, many languages for the rest of the world to discover.
Lastly, Nick Vujicic is an evangelist who has no arms and legs. Yes, he knows the alphabet, and he can write through his mouth and type through his toes. But constantly writing in those manners is truly exhausting. He has a wife to help him with.
I want to focus not on the obstacles these people faced just to write their songs or books. Rather, I want to focus on their goal why they write and why they still write amidst those obstacles, which should be embodied in all kinds of writing regardless if the author is complete or disabled.
Most importantly, writing embodies a message through a language. At school or at a conference, we took notes too fast that later when we re-read our notes, we cannot understand our penmanship anymore. We are often too focused on writing down the proverbial words of the speakers onto paper, that we forget to write them down in our brains.
If the message is lost, the writing in paper has no sense. It merely evidences our presence at an event, and we would probably throw that paper away since its value has been reduced to nothing.
There must be a part of us, as authors, which we put on the words we write. We translate our thoughts into audible or readable words to promulgate a message. Our personality must emanate in those words. Words without a goal to inform, inspire, educate, convince, rationalize or engrave a message is just an empty collection of words.
After writing in our blogs using a language others understand, we want our message to be written in other people's lives afterwards.
Yes, we know the definition and act of writing. What is more important is the process underlying that physical act: the process of delivering a message and engraving it into the recipient—to lengthen the life of a message beyond the period our fleeting memories can keep them.
This piece is untidy, but I hope I got my point across somehow.
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