{"id":770,"date":"2026-09-25T21:27:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T21:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/?p=770"},"modified":"2026-10-22T00:45:43","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T00:45:43","slug":"was-worte-tragen-koennen-vom-schmerz-und-glueck-des-schreibens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/en\/was-worte-tragen-koennen-vom-schmerz-und-glueck-des-schreibens","title":{"rendered":"What Words Can Bear. On the Pain and Joy of Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here I am, doing it again.\nAnd once again, it is painfully difficult, especially at the beginning. The fear of getting it wrong is standing directly behind me, narrowing its eyes at my words, one heavy hand resting on my shoulder.\nStill, it has to be done.\nSo I have to do it.<\/p>\n

I have to write.<\/p>\n

What is this thing, writing, anyway? What does it mean to me? I want to look around me for a while, and then inward, and see what I may discover.\nWriting: making marks on or into a surface so that they can be seen by others, taken in and, if all goes well, understood.\nBut I am getting ahead of myself. I ought to start at the beginning, if only to preserve some semblance of order.\nIt is complicated enough already.<\/p>\n

The History of Writing<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

People have been writing for thousands of years. Scholars speak of five to six thousand years, although precursors to writing are probably older still. Who first made marks somewhere in the world and transferred them onto a material capable of preserving them beyond the moment remains obscure.\nWhat seems certain is that this happened in several parts of the world at remarkably similar points in human history.\nPerhaps what we now call writing emerged in communities that had grown so large that information could no longer, or perhaps should no longer, be passed on orally to everyone.<\/p>\n

Nor do we know with any certainty what the earliest documents contained. Administration, myths and stories, poetry: ancient fragments offer traces of all of these.\nWhat they seem to have had in common was the desire to prevent something from being lost. Information was to be ordered, preserved and remembered, according to need.\nIn Mesopotamia, administrative records were demonstrably written in Sumerian cuneiform. Egyptian hieroglyphs in the burial chambers of the pyramids still proclaim the power and splendour of their owners.<\/p>\n

Chinese writing can look back on a history of some four thousand years; its oldest surviving traces are inscriptions carved into oracle bones and tortoise shells.\nThe South American Inca system of knotted cords known as quipu can no longer be read by anyone. Its knowledge disappeared with those who had used it, when invaders carried their violent dreams of gold and infectious diseases into that part of the world.<\/p>\n

Writing in this way demanded effort and resources. The ability to read and write was therefore initially available to only a small number of people.\nHow widely literacy could spread depended, among other things, on what people had to write with and on. In Egypt, where papyrus and reed pens could be obtained comparatively cheaply, literacy was far more widespread than in medieval Europe, with its oak-gall inks and precious parchment.\nWhen paper, much cheaper to produce, began its triumphant journey westward from China, the number of people using the written word grew with it. The invention of printing made written works easier to distribute and own.\nModern e-books do not even ask for space on a shelf.<\/p>\n

Today, many people write on computers and no longer need paper at all. And yet pen and paper remain remarkably popular.\nWhy do we not simply write and archive everything digitally by now, or even store it as audio? That would require even less effort than typing. We would merely have to chatter into our smartphones.\nAnd yet the written word still seems to possess a particular value.\nWhere does that value come from?<\/p>\n

The Value of the Written Word<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Writing takes effort.\nEspecially when the result is meant to be good \u2014 worth reading.\nSomeone has to surrender a portion of their lifetime and actually compose something.\nMost human beings are lazy creatures, and I do not mean that reproachfully. Human laziness has given rise to a great many useful inventions designed to make life easier. At this point, heartfelt thanks are due to the inventors of the washing machine and the dishwasher.\nPart of the value of the written word lies in our recognition of that effort.\nSomeone sat down and did it.\nWell done!<\/p>\n

The written word is powerful.\nThe people in Asia who painstakingly carved intricate symbols into bone and tortoiseshell for use in divination had a purpose. They gave their energy and concentration to discovering something about the nature of things and the shape of the future \u2014 or perhaps even to influencing both.\nTheir intention endowed the written signs with power.\nThey were magical.\nToday, we tend either to smile indulgently at magic or to surrender ourselves to it with great conviction. Whatever one\u2019s position, one fact remains: every piece of writing is magical in its own way.<\/p>\n

Lines and shapes on a surface can be transformed into language that carries meaning.\nThey can plant thoughts inside human minds \u2014 thoughts that may possess the power to alter the future.\nIs that not still astonishing?\nWords can stir emotions capable of moving people to their very depths. The Greek tragedians understood the power of the pain and grief they aroused.\nTheir aim was catharsis: a cleansing of the soul through witnessing and sharing in suffering.\nThe \u201cheroes\u201d of tragedy, often blameless or powerless, marked by fate in cruel and terrible ways, were human beings too.\nIn the Greek theatre, people suffered with them.\nAnd when someone looked at the person sitting beside them, they saw the same sorrow reflected in another pair of eyes and knew themselves united in the experience of being human.\nFor a moment, the loneliness that accompanies our separated consciousnesses had been overcome<\/p>\n

The written word also outlives the human lifespan.\nWe have a long tradition of preserving in writing those things and circumstances considered worth keeping, those that must not be allowed to disappear.\nSumerian temple administrators carefully kept records of their affairs. Many of the world\u2019s major religions base their central teachings on \u201choly books\u201d or collections of sacred writings. Rulers, whether individuals or institutions, demonstrate and document their power and influence through written laws.\nOur respect for written messages has even taken on something approaching cosmic foresight.\nIn 1977, The Sounds of Earth were inscribed on the Voyager Golden Records, accompanied by instructions in symbolic language intended to explain to extraterrestrial sophonts \u2013 by which I mean intelligent extraterrestrial life forms \u2013 how the disc might be decoded.<\/p>\n

The written word is also easier to examine, more reliable and, in a rather appealing way, generally more accessible.\nOnce someone has committed themselves to writing, it becomes considerably harder to talk their way out of it later, however considerable their charm.\nLists help prevent important things from being forgotten or overlooked. This applies equally to grocery shopping and to collecting evidence for a court case.\n\u201cWhat you have in black and white, you can safely take home with you,\u201d my mathematics teacher used to say.\nAnd he was right.\nThe transmission of knowledge depends upon writing, particularly theoretical knowledge. What humanity knows has long since become too extensive and too complicated for any one person to remember every detail from every field and pass it on.\nThe age of the universal scholar is long past.\nHow useful written records become when our memory grows a little hazy \u2014 or when we simply want to learn something new.<\/p>\n

The Value of Writing<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It is not only what has been written that has value.\nThe act of writing itself has value too.\nAnyone who writes with even a modest degree of regularity knows the clarifying, cleansing power of putting things down on paper.\nMorning pages, for instance, can help clear the mind. The insatiable chatterbox inside one\u2019s head finally quietens down, having been allowed to say its piece properly.\nThings that trouble us but cannot be changed may stop endlessly circling through our thoughts once they have been captured on a page.\nAnd suddenly there is room again: for new thoughts, for creativity, for a different approach to a problem.\nIn that sense, what has been written helps the writing itself.\nDiaries can offer reassurance and clarity about who we are.\nI should speak explicitly for myself here: even the things I really ought to know about myself, I appear to forget with astonishing regularity.\nThis is particularly true of painful insights.\nThen I leaf back through an old notebook and discover that I have written the whole thing down before.\nSo I sigh, metaphorically take myself by the nose, and hope that this time the lesson might stay with me a little longer.\nKeeping a gratitude journal can have an effect all its own \u2014 I am almost tempted to call it therapeutic.\nChange the standpoint from which you look at the world, and the manner in which you look at it, and many things genuinely begin to appear quite different.<\/p>\n

Writing non-fiction is far less dry than it may seem at first.\nAfter all, an author is writing about something they have spent a long time thinking about and studying deeply.\nEvery field of knowledge becomes more fascinating the better one understands it and the further one ventures into it.\nLearning enough to move beyond the blissful stage of half-knowledge can, admittedly, be something of an ordeal.[1]\nThe inner critic will tirelessly ensure that doubts about one\u2019s own abilities remain in excellent health.\nAnd yet there is great pleasure in sharing knowledge \u2014 in helping someone else take their first steps across unfamiliar ground without immediately tripping over their own feet.\nIdeally, the writer of non-fiction writes as though explaining something to a friend: trying to make \u201cthe thing\u201d, whatever that thing may be, easier for someone they care about.\nWhen this succeeds, the writer has written about a subject they know well and value, for someone towards whom they feel goodwill.\nThat is a promising arrangement for enthusiasm and pleasure on both sides.<\/p>\n

Anyone who has ever written an academic paper knows how much the process can sharpen one\u2019s thinking.\nThe demands of thorough, properly documented research broaden the horizon. The requirement that an argument be traceable and comprehensible improves both reasoning and language.\nIt can also bring a certain kind of thinking back down to earth, particularly when that thinking concerns matters with only a tenuous connection to everyday life.\nAnd yes, by the time I used the word sophonts, it may already have become apparent that I am referring here to my own guild of philosophers.\nI shall add an explanation immediately and offer my polite apologies.<\/p>\n

Writers of fantasy and literary fiction have told me of the joy and happiness that telling their stories brings into their lives.\nFor them too, writing is often difficult work.\nBut the same is true of many things worth learning. They require effort, persistence and time.\nAnyone who exercises knows this.\nYet once the painful point has been passed, once the effort of carving out the time has succeeded and one genuinely gets into the writing, it can become one of the most exhilarating experiences there is.\nYou can create worlds.\nYou can breathe life into creatures capable of touching human hearts.\nYou can give meaning to what happens.\nAnd when one looks instead at the real world around us, which so often presents itself as distressingly devoid of meaning, resistant to influence and generously supplied with adversity, this can be a considerable blessing.\nIt may be a blessing for the reader as well, whom we invite to come along on the journey.<\/p>\n

Writing is rather like having children.\nYou do not have to do it.\nYou may quite reasonably abstain on the grounds that there are already plenty in the world.\nIf you decide to do it anyway, it will probably cost money at first and, if fortune is unkind, perhaps more than it ever brings in.\nIt will cost time \u2014 time you might have spent differently, filling it with other activities.\nThere will always remain the suspicion that the alternative might have been considerably more pleasant.\nLarge parts of the process will be laborious.\nBeginning is difficult. And just when things finally start to flow, something will inevitably happen to knock you out of your stride and make it difficult to continue.\nAnd once the first draft is finished, the real work begins.\nHere I am thinking especially of poets, whom I have shamefully neglected until now.\nFor then one must begin shaping and polishing, and not rest until the text is clear and finely worked, like a gemstone.\nAt least, if one wants language to sparkle.\nWriting is like having children.\nYou do not have to do it.\nYou may be afraid that you will fail at it.\nBut then you will never know what it feels like.<\/p>\n

Why I Write<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

My greatest fear is not that no one will ever read what I have written down through all my struggles and effort and fallibility.\nIt is that I might fail to find the right words for what I actually want to say.\nOne never knows.\nReading helps.\nReading a great deal, especially the work of people who can write in such a way that I stand before them humbled and bow my head.\nI stand there with my head lowered, but neither unhappily nor enviously.\nMy heart is full of respect and gratitude because they allow me to take part; because their intelligent, carefully chosen words keep alive in me the hope that it is possible to write just like that.\nThey are human beings, after all.\nJust like me.<\/p>\n

Poor creatures, those who imagine they can simply have an AI write for them in this way.\nThey are surrendering the chance of genuine connection.\nThe creative part of writing disappears; the part that clarifies and frees the mind, the part capable of bringing such profound happiness.\nAn AI cannot tell me about its life.\nIt cannot say:\nLook, I am a being like you. If I managed this, you can manage it too.\nIt may be exceptionally good at arranging other people\u2019s thoughts.\nBut not the ones inside my head.\nAnd above all, it cannot credibly reassure me in my moments of distress that I am not alone in this world.
Because if all goes well \u2014 if I have written something, and what I have written is found \u2014 then perhaps I may reach another human being and touch them in some way.\nPerhaps I can distract them for a while from something they have their own good reasons not to think about just now.\nPerhaps I can help them a little with a problem they are struggling with, because I have made my own experience accessible to them.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps, and this would be the ideal for me, I may even have succeeded in making myself felt.\nIn letting another person know that they are not alone in being who they are.\nNot alone with their problems, their feelings, their thoughts.\nThat there are other lives, full of difficulties and good ideas, despair and delight, lived by human beings who feel and think and are willing to share something of that abundance with them.<\/p>\n

That would make me happy.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_metis_text_type":"standard","_metis_text_length":14846,"_post_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,13,12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-ethik","category-sprache","category-zeitfragen"],"public_identification_id":"4c075bbc89d8414ea760d211efab73aa","private_identification_id":"63e16cdf160446c7932bddb4c3526e03","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking-about.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}