There comes a time in life when you wonder what it is all about. What am I living for and what am I doing? What do I want and what is right and wrong to want?
These times are there for us to explore ourselves and what is in us to say. It is a time of self discovery in a way that we have never before been challenged with in our lives.
I go to the library at the university here in town and just go to an arbitrary floor and start looking in the stacks of books they have for whatever comes in front of me. What you find in a university library is thousands of volumes of books that are very high level types of books. Technical, educational, literary, foreign language and really just too many subjects to name here.
But today I found some of the writings of the founding fathers of the United States of America. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, to name a few. I found one bit of history that I wasn’t aware of and that is that General Robert E. Lee’s, Commander of the Confederate Army during the Civil War, father was Major General Henry Lee III and Governor of Virginia who was chosen to write George Washington’s Eulogy after his death.
Here is the point of what I am saying. All of these addresses are extremely well written and thought out. There is no sparing of words nor any cheap descriptions to make it easier for people to understand. The language used is powerful, intellectual and eloquent. These are people who knew how to think, reason and articulate complex ideas with precision without ever losing their sense of decorum for which their office is responsible.
You see, we should write more. Today, I type most everything I write on the computer because it is faster, more legible and easily reproduced. In colonial times they wrote by hand, with a feather and ink so they couldn’t have been able to write very fast. Then, when it was to be published they had to take it to a printing press and every letter had to be laid into place so they could reproduce copies. It was a long process. That didn’t stop them from doing it and it especially didn’t stop them from reading either.
You see the heart and soul of a society is expressed in the arts. Literature is one major form of the arts that need our attention. At the time the writings of these patriots were speeches, declarations and politically motivated. But today, you can look at them as literature, a form of art.
Everyone is talking and very few people are listening. Why?
Because most of the talking people do is just noise, complaining about things or talking about just nothing important or compelling. This happens because people don’t practice and get better at expressing themselves on a consistent basis. Writing is one way to do that and you can start now.
By writing you have time to correct and improve what you say. By reading the literature from great writers you can improve your language. You don’t have to study it, just keep raising the level of your language by raising the level of your vocabulary. Learning from great authors is the fastest way to become one yourself.
There is a split happening in society and people think it is a split between the rich and the poor. But it isn’t only money where the differences in society are being established.
Our society is experiencing a chasm in the realm of literacy. It touches on something that was deemed as extremely important for the new nation of the United States. The value of education and literacy was a large part of the concept behind a free society, because an educated populace can make wise decisions and are able to discern between good and bad choices.
However, today we have an ever growing percentage of the population that is not able to read a book, and get all of their “education” from talk radio and television. Not only that, the problem is people have stopped being critical of their own thinking. They accept what they hear, what they think at face value and a simple statement becomes law, regardless of how narrow minded and poorly conceived it is.
The disturbing level of rhetoric today is representative of this lack of a stress on literacy, or simply said…READING.
You see, there is also a ever narrowing percentage of the population that is getting smarter and smarter. They take the time to read, to educate themselves, spend money on a good education and listen to the greatest minds in our society. They know more, can think better and are slowly but surely taking over the world because they are smarter.
You see, the common man in the United States is not supposed to be ignorant. Being ignorant is inherently UN-American. By definition, we as Americans are required to be the greatest nation on earth not because we are the most powerful, the richest, even the most innovative, but rather because we are the best educated and best informed.
Sadly, this is not the case and it is getting worse.
In my project Boredom to Brilliance the entire idea is to become brilliant and with that become a powerful human being. Through the arts you have the ability to transform yourself from a common serf to a leader of thought, science, business and people. The arts communicate ideas at the highest level of human understanding.
I get the feeling sometimes that our country is being handed over to rednecks. It is disturbing to me to hear the rhetoric and small minded ways of thinking that our political leaders are expressing because it resonates with so many people.
Don’t be one of the many that is being spoon fed your information. Don’t be one of the many that is being led down the road of least resistance. Be one of the few that will shape the greatness for the future and never in the history of time did an ignorant and uneducated people continue to thrive.
Write, write and write. Read, read and read. Get better, smarter and more enlightened. Stay open minded. Stay hungry for wisdom.
So, when we write we explore our inner world, we can find out what is going on inside of ourselves and ask ourselves questions that are going to lead us to a better life.