What makes words so important?

On Monday, I posed the question: “What makes writing so important“. I was attempting to make the point that writing is a freedom that we are given, and that we often take it for granted, forgetting how we got to where we are. I examined the difficulty that it used to take to get your writing seen, and wondered whether the difficulty made that writing more important. I concluded that the importance of writing had nothing to do with how it was written, but simply that it was written.

After talking with my mom about the article, she gave me a new question to ponder: “What makes words so important”? She explained that words are the beginning of writing, and therefore must be thought about before questioning the writing itself. She reminded me that words are not just sounds that we make, or inanimate objects to toss around, but words carry emotions, memories and evoke feelings. She reminded me to think about the words that are used on an individual basis and judge their importance…before attempting to judge the importance of the act of writing. She recommended going back to the process I used through college (I was a rhetorical communications major in college, which meant I spend a lot of time analyzing words and deciphering the hidden meanings behind them.) I love getting my mom’s thoughts on things…she always gives such a great perspective.

Anyway, after chatting with her, I began to really think about words again, and I got lost.

I started thinking about words, like creativity, which are so important to this blog. What does it mean? Creativity. By definition it means one thing, but to each individual person it means something too. To me, creativity stirs the emotion of passion. It means openness and color. It stands for freedom of expression and creates my livelihood. But to someone else, it may be scary and evoke terror. Some one who is afraid of reaching outside of the box, or being free to come up with their own ideas without restraint could be terrified of the idea of being creative.

And this is where I got lost.

I started to question every word that we use, and  how someone else can interpret them. No word is really safe from this process, even a word as simple as “word”. Say it to someone stuck in the 90′s, and they might think it means ‘right on’, talk to a Microsoft exec and they think computer program, an author thinks of it as a tool, and still someone else may see it as a source of frustration, as in being unable to think of the right word to use.

Now I was completely lost.

What’s your take on words and their importance? Am I reading too much into this?

Related posts:

1. What makes writing so important?
2. How do you choose the words you use?
3. The most important writing rule