Making the huge change from being a corporate ladder-climber to a free-living writer wasn’t easy for me.

It wasn’t just about the logistics of such an extreme lifestyle change—the biggest hurdle was learning how to understand myself again!

I went from being someone who knew exactly who I was, and how I measured up against targets, to making up my own rules and not knowing if I was meeting any standard, because no one was setting any for me.

If you’ve ever made a huge life change, you may recognise your own experience in this.

At the core of this journey has been my need to re-understand my why.

Why do I feel so driven to write? Why should I spend all my precious time doing it?

Sure, it makes me super happy—but there must be something deeper to it than that? What is this whole writing thing even about anyway?

I have sensed there is a profound, deeper meaning in putting pen to paper that long predates my birth. Have you felt this too?

Today some answers became clear to me—surprisingly, while watching a documentary about human evolution.

1. Writing is the mother of all mass learning.

Believe it, baby!  With the invention of written communication—ideas and ancient knowledge weren’t just passed down verbally to the next generation anymore! They could suddenly be distributed on a global scale, across oceans and continents to unheard of lands.

This created opportunity for new minds to approach old problems and old minds to be expanded. We began to thrive.

“If I have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Beautifully, he makes the point that, without the ideas of his predecessors, he could never have developed his own theories.

Our written and shared ideas—even our most meager scribblings—have the potential to create an avalanche of human awakening on a scale we can’t possibly imagine!

Moreover, the way each individual person views the world is so f*cking interesting to me. The thing I find most beautiful in all humanity, is our ability to all see the same exact thing completely differently.

One person’s version of different could be the pebble that starts the rock-slide—that ends up as the biggest leap into happy and healthy consciousness that our planet has ever known!

It requires only that we write our “pebbles” down.

2. Books built spaceships—our ideas can move mountains.

Believe it, baby!  Before the wonders of science, mathematics and modern engineering—writing had to be born!

Books created airplanes… Graphic novels created TV… Newspapers built societal structures.

All of those pieces of paper were filled with the thoughts of regular ol’ people like you and me!

Each letter on those pieces of paper represented a thought, an ideal, a belief or a vision, that would never have contributed to the life of the planet as powerfully, if it wasn’t written down.

When we think we are not good enough to share our ideas, let’s remember this: spaceships were made from books.

Precious pen-bearers, writing is not simply a frivolous way of blurting out our brain-things!

It is not just a pass-time for the lazy or the domain of the creative genius.

Writing is an ancient tool for evolution.

It is a real part of the Real Work.

And we, my friends, are the workers.

Relephant read:

    Why I Write. 

 Author: Crystal Davis

Apprentice Editor: Yoli Ramazzina / Editor: Renee Picard

Photos: via the author, purchased at deathtothestockphoto.com