I wrote this elsewhere for a tangible purpose, but I repost it here for an intangible one.

To me, writing is a mode of discovery. It is a tool that I employ to analyze, and make sense of, the world around me. (I like things that make sense.) It is also a tool that I can use to analyze the world within and, to some extent, make that inner-world visible to others. Oh yes, despite my best intentions, I seek understanding! Or is it controversy? Sometimes I seek that too.

But deeper than that, and perhaps as a function of being an overly intuitive and rational person, I do not see language as being separable from thought. I see action without thought as meaningless (try as I may to question and understand this position that I hold because part of me insists that it cannot/should not be true). So for me, there is nothing outside of the text. Language shapes the world around us because thought (and for me language = thought) is our only way to access it.

Some of this is taken directly from my sociology textbook's definition of culture. Basically each of us knows the world only as we perceive it; however, those perceptions are based on learned interpretations because almost all learning is social. Therefore “culture” is essentially an arbitrary, socially created, construct. Since culture is an arbitrary social construct it is therefore not “Natural” nor is it to be taken as a given. Cultural meaning is conveyed through *LANGUAGE*, symbols, cultural myths, structure and practice of social institutions, and social rules for congruent action. These vehicles of meaning together construct our worldview, our sense of identity, and our ideologies. Selves, societies, and institutions change continually through interaction; therefore, social reality is situational. But even in a situational social reality, context governs our interpretation of cultural meaning. While the “real conditions” of existence are not subjective, they only have meaning through interpretation and that interpretation is learned through social interaction (which is governed by language). Social meaning defines social reality, so the only way to change social reality is through some form of communication. For me, that communication takes the form of text.

Ergo, the pen is mightier than the sword!

The only way, for me, to change "reality" is to communicate my ideas through writing because, in a very real sense, there is nothing outside of the (T)ext.