Be A Writer
An ancient Egyptian philosophical reason to motivate your writing
We often hear of Egypt, and many of us are aware of its wonders. One thing that seldom gets mentioned is the profound works of philosophy that came out of the world. It is also often forgotten that the Egyptians were the teachers of the Greeks who gave us beautiful creations of the mind.
With all that aside, today I’d like to take you on a path that many of you would enjoy. And this is the Philosophy of the Writer.
An old manuscript that dates to about 1200 BC was found with inscriptions that got the work named “Be a writer” or “The Immortality of A Writer.” Within this manuscript held knowledge that embodied the various pursuits of a writer.
Something that should get emphasized is the sheer value that this work puts on writing and the writer. It demonstrates that writing is not a simple activity of putting mindless information on whatever form you can.
Writing is a means to spread and teach knowledge that has been amassed like wealth over the ages and refined like wine to give it a richer flavor. Over the ages, it only gets better and relevant if it initially got written down with much insight on a matter.
Writing Immortalises People
Forever being remembered should not be a goal for anyone. It is nothing short of narcissistic. What good writing does, though, is the preservation of wisdom and knowledge that one person has written. Most of the time, those who we remember are nothing short of remarkable writers because of the sheer will it takes to put information in a consumable manner.
Whether it is Tim Denning or even Dostoevsky, there are profound lessons that all these people can teach us just from how good they contribute or contributed to their work.
If you would only accomplish this, becoming expert in writing:
Those writers of knowledge from the time of events after the gods,
those who foretold the future,
their names have become fixed for eternity,
though they are gone, they have completed their lifespan,
and all their kin are forgotten.-Irsesh
We shall never remember anyone for the sake of it. We do so because of how much of an impact they left us with. Anyone who has read an impressionable piece remembers the author because of the impact that was left on them.
The Teachings Inspire Others to Write
From antiquity, the knowledge we have constantly kept on getting compounded by working on the base that was provided by others. We know this from the works of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle alone. The same can be said for religious teachers such as Jesus, who ended up with followers numbering in the billions.
And Irseh summed it up in this way:
They did not make for themselves a chapel of copper,
or a stela for it of iron from the sky.
They did not manage to leave heirs,
from their children, to pronounce their names,
but they have achieved heirs out of writings,
out of the teachings in those.
The authorship of these people inspires all and can change the views of any that read their works. No one is too intelligent to reject any knowledge from a different angle.
From great to small, (all) are given as his children,
for the writer, he is their leader.
Writing Puts More Value on Our Lives
Irseh was well aware that many will only leave tombstones to their name. Oddly enough, even some of the best writers that we know did not believe in themselves and died without leaving their work in the public.
For those who are not aware of the story of Franz Kafka, then he was such a writer. If he were confident enough in many of his works, then maybe we would have lived in a world where his name was better known. Even with the little he put out for the world, he shall forever be remembered for what he observed and set in stone for generations to come.
Be a writer — put it in your heart,
and your name is created by the same.
Scrolls are more useful than tombstones,
than building a solid enclosure.
They act as chapels and chambers,
We are never too sure of what our writings could evoke in someone. Even further, we are never too sure of the actions that will get inspired in the name of our work. Sometimes, even the negatives arise as a result of this. Communism is a chapel that emerged out of Marx’s work. In the same fashion, Stoicism emerged out of the writings of many, including the Philosopher King(Marcus Aurelius) himself.
Writing Helps Us Avoid the Mistakes of the Past
The saying goes, “A prophet is not accepted in his hometown”(or something along those lines).
Anyone who has read Nietschze’s predictions on the impact that socialism will bring upon the world can only nod in acceptance to that saying. In the book Will to Power, he proclaims this about socialism, “the logical conclusion of the tyranny of the least and dumbest.”
Those who knew how to foretell the future,
What came from their mouths took place,
and may be found in (their) phrasing.
Irseh made this profound observation then, and it held as much relevance as it does today. The truth of the matter is that there will always be a select number of people with terrifying foresight.
Within the lifetimes of these people, their works of literature may be held in high regard or the opposite. Orwell wrote so well on totalitarian dictatorships, and some of the technology he predicted is part of our daily lives.
For those who have read 1984 and Animal Farm, I bet you can see some of those very characteristics in our societies.
What even worsens the human condition is the reluctance to listen before the said events come to pass. It is often too late to come up with any solutions because by the time we realize it, we are too deep down the rabbit hole.
Now. Write on. Write on for there are reasons why you might change the world.
