What does it mean to be a writer?

Is it someone who has something to say, or someone saying something? What’s the difference? How can you tell when it’s one or the other?

Does it mean being honest and sharing a view into some part of humanity that I think I comprehend? Maybe, but not always.

It may not be that I’m right or that I see the whole picture, but it might mean that I help someone else consider things from a new starting point. It may be that I am the foundation for others to stand upon, and in growing taller, then they add something remarkable and significant to the world. Possibly more noticed and possibly significant, not to really claim significance themselves. 

It may be that the electrical and chemical synapses in my brain, translated into this digital “figurative” paper, then have the power to train yours in on some new idea that has the power to change the world that we need. Or is it just the world of your synapses?

Does it matter which if it’s the power of bringing about some kind of change? Do the same synapses fire when we read and/or write a shared passage? Do we ever really experience shared things the same way even if the brain "reacts" the same? Surely your matter is still somehow different than mine and that MATTERS. These differences in "the same things" allow us to see the world in a new way. Probably. Adding color, joy, brightness, never before considered terrain.

Maybe it’s just for the joy of thinking until one day you come upon something that so perfectly fits a necessary skillset that you realize you were being prepared all along for that exact thing and moment. But prepared by... what? And does it matter?

If we’re made of "matter", does that mean we matter? Doesn’t it matter? Why do I insist it doesn’t matter?

I think so often I believe that the things which bring me joy don’t have meaning or purpose, but what if instead of being annoyed and frustrated by the inner expressions because they aren't "useful", I listened? What if instead of extinguishing the ingenuitive parts that don’t fit I realize it’s my soul trying to tell me something meaningful, trying to speak to mankind through one little flawed vehicle?

But what if that vehicle is so busy trying to be a butterfly, or an astronaut, or a therapist that it doesn’t even realize that the meaning and purpose of their life is already within, waiting to speak? And in fear, for to be actually realized was the struggle in the first place. 

What if being something great was the missed (or was it "misunderstood"?) opportunity of the century because it was actually about discovering that I was something great all along?

What if in the very deepest places we’re really all the same and have needs for connection and love and relationships regardless of the packaging, and what if the desperate development of the talents we so worship was another way for people to fall into the trap of thinking we had to earn love and worthiness, instead of discovering it within us? What if we got that wrong? 

Would it change the kinds of discoveries and advancements of humanity if we filled the holes in our souls which cause us the emotional pain we're trying to obscure with acclaim? Is true discovery even about earning acclaim, or is there a God reaching down and, like a dove, touching our minds with insight because of the other parts of our desires— the desire for the blessing of humanity— for searching. What if we get this wrong? And what if we don’t listen when that voice speaks to us?

But what would happen if we did?