Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

The Power of Writing

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The Power of Writing

Writing has the energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate, to humble and to make think.The biggest benefit of writing is that allows to store and organize feelings, thoughts and ideas in a coherent manner as opposed to keeping them all jumbled in own mind. There is a reason why the best creative people carry notebook everywhere they go. If we are really not willing to share our writing publicly, the very least we can do is to write for ourselves, whether we prefer to carry physical notebooks or type in digital journals. Writing down own thoughts gives the ability to investigate our thought processes and stances on issues "from the outside" after some time has passed. It gives the ability to find the holes and flaws in logic and either change our stance, or reinforce the points being hold, or buttress the weak points in logic. Writing down our own thoughts is a fundamental part of self-analysis. It does not matter if nobody reads. The point of writing is self-expression — gathering an audience should be secondary. We cannot convince or connect to other people without convincing or connecting first ourselves.We cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of writing until it has been done to us.
Apart from the writing geniuses that form less than 1% of the total human population, I am pretty certain all good writing starts from bad writing. In fact, reading biographies of well-known writers it indicates that great writing only comes through endless, repetitive iteration. Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. In any case, so what if the writing is bad? Ultimately what truly matters is that we are writing something that matters to us, in our very own voice that expresses thoughts as a unique individual. There is no one else who can be you and write as you.
“I am never inspired enough to write” It is a common fallacy that we have to wait for inspiration before we start writing: If you wait for inspiration or a better chance to write; you’re not a writer, you’re a waiter. Granted there are moments of inspiration that sweep you away and let you pour your soul instinctively into your writing, but those moments are few and far in between. It is important to trust the process that once begin to write, the story will unfold by itself. You can not think yourself out of a writing block; you have to write yourself out of a thinking block.This is still missing the point; writing should not be an act of inspiration, but again, an act of self-expression. Wanting to write when you are inspired is almost equivalent to stating that you will only speak when you are inspired.
Most think they have no time to write; I think most of us have trouble prioritizing time. Often we do not understand that in life we need to be able to carefully weigh tradeoffs. If writing enables us to be more conscious, thoughtful and creative, why are we not deliberately making time to write? Why is it not a priority? Making time to write is making time to think or connect with ourselves. With the exception of meditation, try thinking of a better way to connect to yourself. Writing in itself is a form of meditation. In the start putting some thoughts out there and we become acutely aware of who we really are and what we really think.
When you write and share it, it is an opportunity for an asynchronous connection between you and a virtual stranger. When you write about your fears, you are letting someone know that they are not alone facing those fears. When you write about overcoming difficult obstacles, you are giving some hope to someone out there that it is possible to do the same for themselves. When you write about your victories, you are making an example out of yourself — hey let’s aim for the stars, they are possible to reach sometimes. You are honoring yourself and your experiences. What could be better than to chronicle them somewhere and sharing them with the world?  Anyway, raise your writing, not your voice - It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.
We should not trivialize or underestimate your acquired experiences and knowledge. What you think is trivial may make someone’s day. What you assume as common knowledge may be the exact information that someone else is trying to find. It may even change someone’s life. You could unwittingly inspire someone to make a change. Try taking the first step, it is always the hardest to start. Try writing words that will turn into sentences forming paragraphs, which will become the very basis of a story which you may not even know exist within yourself. You may discover through writing, the stories of your life could be vastly different from what you have remembered in your head; that it would inevitably take on a life on its own once it is written and shared.
But when write you need to be mindful, because the words you write or speak to others  they can leave a huge impact and create a lasting memory--either good or bad--so it's super important to choose them wisely. Writing can make or break a relationship and your choice of words and the way you express yourself can accelerate or kill your success. Finally, your writings either plant the seed of success or failure in the mind of another.

Mohammad Zahir Akbari is the newly emerging writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at mohammadzahirakbari@ gmail.com

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