Power in Words

Words command immense power.

Just a concentrated few can take your breath right away. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I have never understood this to be true. Images undeniably speak loudly and across languages- as a photographer, I could write another essay on the importance of visual art and its relationship to culture and change. Still, I see broad strokes and abstract concepts.

Words, however, are explicit. Versatile and efficacious, the written word holds an unrivalled ability to change the world.

This is not, of course, to discredit the spoken word. Martin Luther King Jr.’s visionary speech had such an impact I need not even specify the title. Jonathan Edwards’ oration was so riveting his congregation clutched at their pews in terror of sliding into Hell. I do not underestimate the power of a compelling speech.

Folk tales pass by mouth through centuries and generations, a rolling snowball accumulating cultural wisdom from a collective people. So writing, too, endures the test of time. Carl Sagan said, “One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.” Echoing through space and time, the written word will reach an audience of billions.

Beyond this, writing travels across great distances. From letters by land and by sea to texts both holy and cellular, what a miracle it is to send a message around the world and back again!

Best of all, writing resonates most deeply and intimately with each reader, because our reading is made precious by our own private experience of the text. It is the written word that is freeing and truthful. We will reveal secrets with our pens that our tongues would never betray. It is the written word that is insightful and illuminating. Worlds, cultures, and people with unfathomably different lives and psyches suddenly become accessible when we read their stories over and again.

I put forth to you not an image, no sound, nor any other communication. I wrote this because the most specific medium over which I have complete control, the one which lends itself unqualifiedly to any meaning and any person, is the written word.