sadeewhip

Purple is my favorite word to say. I like the way it feels in my mouth - it’s like swallowing a big, satisfying glob of food. Hyperbole is one of my favorite words when it moves from printed to spoken. It really comes alive in the transition.

Playing with language is not only a lot of fun, but an art form. From Dr. Seuss to e.e.cummings, language, in the right mind, is akin to color or shape for any other artist - it is a creative expression.

Creativity is often sacrificed due to attempts to be right - whether right = “correct” or right = “belong”. We have so many opportunities to be creative every day. Many people will say they simply don’t have time. But creativity is so natural to us that it shouldn’t require extra effort. It’s a matter of priority and practice. There are some cultures that hold beauty in such high esteem that no object is too mundane to be decorated.

(This may seem like a digression but hang in there with me)

I have studied love quite passionately for a number of years. There is an amazing amount of material on the subject. From the bible to the Kama Sutra, from the marble halls of academia to the dirty back alleys of any major city, everyone has something to say about love.

Another interest of mine is beauty. As in who is beautiful and why. There’s biological beauty - which is when a person is proportioned and shiny in a way that indicates reproductive viability. Then there is beauty as an indicator of love.

Beauty as an indicator of love.

More often than not, when we find something beautiful we are having an experience of love. Think of all the people you love who aren’t really “good looking” meaning they aren’t proportioned to be reproductively viable. Yet they are beautiful, radiant, sexy, yummy, delicious, fabulous, attractive, adorable, amazing, etc.

Well, I think we need more experiences of love. Said another way, I think we need more beauty. Which brings me back to language.

One way you and I can make the world more beautiful and spread love is to open up our creativity and embed little chunks of it in whatever we write. Imagine what would happen if shopping lists, emails, letters, love notes, agendas, staff letters, client summaries, web copy, file labels, and everything else we wrote got injected with creative flair! The world would be a much more beautiful place which means a lot more love would be floating around.

How can you make everything you write more beautiful?

First notice what you find beautiful. I think fun, flow and authenticity are beautiful. I also like asymmetry and irregular pentameter and things that are a little bit weird. What’s going on for you when you are having an experience of beauty?

Now think of all the things you write. How can you make these all more beautiful? Are you writing with a pen you love? Should you keep a thesaurus handy so you can use more colorful words? What if you did a little jig right before you put pen to paper?

I’d love to hear ways you bring more love into the world through the things you write and the way you write them. Please share any tips you have so myself and others might be inspired.

Please remember: it doesn’t matter so much what you think as what you experience. If you think this sounds silly, well, that’s a thought. Break the habit of being trapped in your head and experiment for just 1 week and see what happens. You may be surprised or you may be right. But which would be more fun?