I was delighted this evening to encounter the writings of a thoughtful fellow blogger who describes herself as ‘a citizen of the world’. My local (somewhat smaller!) writing group is a forum that seems to me similarly keen to do away with unnecessary walls.
Perhaps my lifelong attraction to care-full writing – the act of writing, and reading that of others – has to do with deep-seated desire to be a ‘citizen of the world’ whilst, at the same time being naturally cautious of imposed noise and hot-house opinions and rhetoric. Many years ago I asked a then-church-attending gentleman how he stayed calm beneath the vigorous protestations of a particular preacher he used to tell me about. ‘I always take a book’, came his peaceable reply.
The wonderful thing about writing is that we’re able to choose, either to ignore, or to come to it quietly, and return to it later, perhaps many times. In unencumbered quietness the writer has tools to hand with which to express depth, and in reading to approach respectfully and openly the expressed inner lives of others.
wind in my wheels 🌱 