When Words Are All You Have (And They Are Enough)

A letter of love to letters.

Whatever you do, do NOT think of an elephant.

I am willing to bet my left kidney that you are now thinking of an elephant. You could have been scrolling through your news feed idly or listening to music, pining after someone or daydreaming about quitting your job but the moment you read the first sentence, all other thought took a backseat, as a giant mammal materialized in your mind. It might even be swinging its trunk or chomping on sugarcane.

Welcome to the magical world of words.

Our age is characterized not just by the availability of an unprecedented amount of information, but the manner in which the information is shared and consumed. Multi-media rules the day, with increasingly sophisticated innovations in technology making the story-telling experience ultra-slick. Interactive maps, touchscreen interfaces, animation, video, audio – we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to immersive experiences.

So, of course, I am here to champion the cause of black squiggles on white papyrus.

Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds’ eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas-abstract, invisible, gone once they’ve been spoken and what could be frailer than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created.

Neil Gaiman

Just pause and consider this for a moment – plain black marks scratched onto a paper or tapped upon a typewriter have the power to travel across space and time to meet you. With a handful of sheets, your world is changed – you are now off on an epic quest to steal a dragon’s egg, or discovering hidden sympathies with a governess’ tale of woe, or tearing up with laughter at the antics of a person who lived three thousand miles away, two hundred years ago.

In a world where each person is inescapably imprisoned within their consciousness, bound by private memory and private thought, words, simple words, offer the gift of companionship – whether through story or conversation. Words erect worlds and make us less lonely.

Even those who believe in nothing – God, or Truth, or Soul – must concede that this is nothing short of magic.

And here it is, in bright, wondrous action:

Read this to yourself. Read it silently.
Don’t move your lips. Don’t make a sound
Listen to yourself. Listen without hearing anything.
What a wonderfully weird thing, huh?

NOW MAKE THIS PART LOUD!
SCREAM IT IN YOUR MIND!
DROWN EVERYTHING OUT.
Now, hear a whisper. A tiny whisper.

Now, read this next line in your best crotchety old man voice:
“Hello there sonny, does this town have a post office?”
Awesome! Who was that? Whose voice was that?
Certainly not yours.

How do you do that? How!?
Must be magic.

– Shel Silverstein