Cussing Without Warrant

It's dark early these days. The daylight is shorter, it seems. This is the time of the year people tend to become depressed. I believe it is called seasonal depression provoked by the decreased exposure to sunlight. Coupled with cold weather and boredom, I am sure the condition is far more than uncomfortable.

I want to be a connoisseur of words. I used to believe that the key was in having a large vocabulary and to an extent, that is important. But as I have grown, writing has become so much more than a hobby or an interest and more of a way to document my evolution as a human being, a way to balance and check myself. It has become one of the few times I am honest with myself about myself. It is one of the few times I even address myself. From that, I have learned that the only thing more important than the words themselves is the manner in which they are arranged. A beautiful arrangement of the simplest words is far more magnificent than the ordinary sentence seasoned with big words. That seasoning is not enough. Words are like ingredients for language and communication. The clever combination makes a good stew. I am not giving up on learning words, but I shall learn to better manage and manipulate the words with which I am already familiar.

READING is so important for this kind of thinking. One must read, a lot, in order to make sense of their world, in order to informed about other worlds, in order to become cultured, in order to be more accepting, and especially to be an artist. You must read. Whatever one chooses as an art form, reading, reading, reading is so important. There is so much information in the world about virtually everything, or an explanation for why much is not known about a particular thing, all documented in literature. Literature, words, words, words connect us. We all speak a language. We all talk to someone or something, somehow. Read everything you can and everything you are given. The talent of reading is amazing. To look and recognize letters that form words, words that have definitions that are automatically retrieved to make a context for what is being read (provided that the word is known to that particular mind). And even if one should not be familiar with a word, there are more words to explain that word and it never ends.

Read books, articles, fortunes, faces, sounds, music, essays, advertisements, criticisms, arguments, announcements, stories, labels, title pages, notes, emails, blogs, shirts, tattoos, secrets, minds and then write. Give someone else a chance to read.