Archives for category: the power of words
Ash Beckham recently did a brillant talk at Ignite Boulder on pejoratively using the word “gay”. Her delivery is bang on while teaching us all why words matter!
This line had me nodding in agreement: “When you hear someone describe something pejoratively as, “so gay” it’s an opportunity for connection and conversation not to be missed”
Give it a watch and tell me your thoughts!
S.
A friend sent me this article from the Washington Post that outlines why famous authors write. I relate a lot to what Sebastian Junger, author of the Perfect Storm wrote:
“When I write a sentence of a paragraph or a chapter that’s good, I know it, and I know people are going to read it. That knowledge — Oh my God, I’m doing it, I’m doing this thing that works — it’s just exhilarating. Lots of times I fail at it.. . . But when it’s good . . . it’s like going on a date that’s going well. There’s an electricity to the process that’s exciting and incomparable to anything else.”
(Fellow wordsmiths: Doesn’t that sum it up beautifully?)
I remember watching Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED Talk entitled, “Your Elusive Creative Genius”, where she shared that for her, writing is such hard work! I remember hearing this and nodding in agreement as she compared herself to a sweaty mule, sitting at her computer wrestling with each painstaking word.
But there are also times when you feel like you just wrote a bunch of shit and then revisit it the next day with fresh eyes and you find yourself thinking, “Damn. Did I write this? That’s some great work!”
Easy. as. pie.
How about you? Do you write? Do you find it both painful and exhilarating like me?
S.
When a friend or loved one is going through a dark period, sending some written words of encouragement is probably one of the best things you can do for them. I remember when I was sick and deeply depressed my brother (bless his heart) came over to my house while I was out and tidied up my apartment, brought over some homemade snacks and left this note on my kitchen table:
I still have the note and every time I’m feelin’ blue-ish, all I have to do is look at it to lift my spirits.
Brother, you’re the best!
xo.
Sister.
Have you seen this Dodge Ram, “God Made a Farmer” Super Bowl Ad yet? This fantastic speech was originally given by, Paul Harvey at a 1978 Future Farmers of America convention. I think the writing is terrific! Below is an excerpt of the speech that was cut out of the ad - and I just love it! I wish they would have kept it in.
I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild; somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to await lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon, and mean it
S.
Why do we tell stories? I grew up in a family of storytellers and as a very young girl, I understood that story was a means of making sense of my family’s history. Before I learned to tell my own tales, story was this awesome, powerful portal that allowed me to learn and experience a world that I had never touched before.
When I first came across spoken word poet, Phil Kaye’s, Why We Tell Stories, TED Talk the other night, I was so inspired that I watched it three times in a row! His explanation on why we tell stories is both poignant and spot on.
Check it out and tell me your thoughts.
S.
This morning, I woke up early (sans hangover) and excited for the day. Today, and for the remaining 364 days, I’m going to consciously move forward with purpose.
A close friend sent the following quote to me this morning and it beautifully sums up everything we’ve talked about on A Solo Affair thus far. It touches on letting go, discovery and trusting that those unanswered questions when left alone, will in fact, answer themselves.
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves—like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. The point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
S.
I fell in love with books. Some people find beauty in music, some in painting, some in landscape, but I find it in words. By beauty, I mean the feeling you have suddenly glimpsed another world, or looked into a portal that reveals a kind of magic or romance out of which the world has been constructed, a feeling there is something more than the mundane, and a reason for our plodding.- Donald Miller, To Own a Dragon
I’m going to make a very bold and dramatic statement but it’s completely honest and true:
This Elizabeth Gilbert TED talk changed my life. Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed or uninspired with my writing I always turn to this video.
If you’re a writer or an artist of any kind, this beautifully delivered TED talk is a must see!
Let me know what you think – enjoy.
S.
