In a recent workshop I participated in, I was forced to take a whole fresh look at myself, what I do as a writer, and how life has changed for me in my forty years here on this planet. From far too many I'm hearing about how it's so chaotic and too fast paced these days. We're all asking where the last day, weeks, months and even years have gone, and struggling to keep it together.
Talk is thick about where everything is headed. In my home country of the USA, there's lots of blame to go around for the dire situations so many find themselves stuck in. Too many are full of despair and uncertainty. Seems there is heartache no matter what direction you look.
It nearly crushed me, all the changes, all the heartache, all the blame throwing, until one day I stared out the window into the back yard, into the neighbor's field and into the trees in the hollow down the hill that stretch back up the hill for as far as I can see. It's all changed much in the nine years I've been looking at that same view. But it's still beautiful. Just different. Nature has had to adjust to the changes it underwent, and it's done some beautiful things. We can too.
I'm a writer. That is what I do. Words are my life, my way of communicating when my voice fails me -- which it always does. I'd much rather write you a note than try to talk to you because I'll shove my foot in my mouth deep at some point. My brain and my mouth don't have a good working relationship, you see. My fingers help me say it the way I really mean it. My books and blogs are my way of reaching out into the big wide world from my little spot on it.
There are thousands of beliefs out there, of what our purpose is here. Why are we riding this big ball in the vastness of the universe? There's no way to know for certain, not really. But I do know for certain that there is a rhyme and reason to the chaos. I've seen it. I've lived it. I don't always understand it, but it's there just the same. And we -- any single one of us -- have the power to affect all else even if only in very miniscule ways. It doesn't matter how small, do it anyway.
Because we can all change the world.
