Writers Rule the World

It’s easy to see the title of this article and want to scoff. Obviously, it’s just another writer puffing himself up with notions of importance and prestige. And though that can be the case for writers sometimes, the statement, “Writers rule the world” is actually true.
Just about everything we see, hear, watch, or experience was written by someone, somewhere. The songs we listen to; the movies we watch; the commercials that annoy us; the speeches President Obama delivers; each individual creation is the brainchild of a writer somewhere. Without writers, the world would be an empty place, void of inspiration.
This may be the reason the position of writer is so dutifully sought after these days. It seems like just about everyone has “writer” listed on their profile as who they are or what they do. Because being a writer is to be seen as intelligent and creative. To be known as a writer means that you have the potential to be in the same class as Kerouac, Fitzgerald, Salinger, and Vonnegut. It’s the ache for this place of immortal respect that drives most of us to write, write, write until our fingers blister and our eyes fade. We want to live forever through the words that spill out of us. Being known as a writer means you live with a certain amount of pride within yourself. When someone asks what we do, it’s rare that we don’t smile wide and proudly say, “I’m a writer.”

And yet, it seems as though the term “writer” has become saturated and washed out, losing a lot of its grandeur and romanticism. Now, anyone who knows how to work a computer or start a blog calls themselves a writer. And in the strictest literal sense, they’re right. But being a writer isn’t about stringing a few words together to form an intelligible paragraph.
A writer is someone who feels and accepts both the burden and the responsibility the words place on them, and yet, the words come easy…because they’re supposed to for a writer. A writer is one who can’t imagine doing anything else with their life other than writing, because anything else means so very little in comparison. A writer is the one who literally cannot live unless they are writing and creating and breathing life onto a page.
Even now, in a world of quick fixed fame and integrated laziness, a real writer bleeds themselves onto their pages, living and dying with every sentence, every feeling, and every interrupted flow. That’s what makes a real writer. And every bit of it is what keeps us coming back to the keyboard again and again and again.

It’s entirely possible that I take this all a bit too seriously. Maybe everyone calling themselves a writer isn’t that big of a deal. After all, most of us live in a free country and if we want to call ourselves “writer”, who’s to stop us?
But I can’t help but contend that being a writer is a very specific calling that isn’t as widespread as some would hope to believe. A writer can’t live without the words, but more importantly, a writer doesn’t want to. In their wildest imagination, doing something other that what they’ve been called to do will never make them happy or satisfied. A writer literally has to write to survive. Writing is a part of them just as their blood and bones are.

In reality, the appeal of being a writer is easily seen. Romantic and virile, a writer is one who is looked upon with kind eyes and a jealous heart. I’m in love with being a writer, so understanding why someone else would want to do what I do is simple, because I can’t imagine anyone wanting to do anything else with their life. To write, to create, is all I’ve ever wanted to do or be. So why wouldn’t everyone else feel the same?

I’ll always believe that writers rule the world. And even more so, I’ll always believe that being a writer is a calling and a responsibility, and one that is not to be taken lightly. If you have trouble comprehending that or if you can easily imagine doing something other than writing with your life, perhaps you weren’t meant to be a writer. Maybe you were made for something else, something more fitting to you.
But if you do get it; if you read these descriptions and nodded with a knowing smile; and if you accept the weighted mantle that being a writer brings, welcome.

We writers rule this world, and we take our job very seriously.

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