Textual Praise and Cursive Curses

Writing signifies the beginning (a birth certificate), and the end (a death certificate) of a human life. Between those two important documents, a person creates and comes into contact with volumes upon volumes of written words, words that have shaped the Earth enough for one to state, in truth, that he who possesses the power of prose is the closest comparison that we have to a physical god. The written word has been created and mastered by humans alone, and in turn humans have gone on to collectively conquer the world.
Text is the main factor that separates humans from other animals, and it has allowed humans to communicate with others in ways no illiterate creature ever could. Conveying its message to one person or millions, to those in the room or across the world, written and typed script has the ability to aid in great decisions, choices that some would say were only meant for the gods.
Writing has allowed us to document history, to create permanent records of lives and stories that were before at the mercy of verbal storytelling and memory. This provides someone with a basis for his or her culture and behaviours, and instils in them a sense of pride of family and country, helping to unite those under common ancestries. Words that withstand the test of time are important to those who must learn from the past to ensure earlier mistakes are not repeated. Just as the lasting quality of pen is preferred to pencil; mistakes cannot be erased, but learned from if they can be read and reviewed for hundreds of years.
Those that can provide people with written accounts of their work that endure over time can ensure themselves a sort of immortality. We remember Shakespeare for his many plays, but we will never know of the woman who served him lunch, or the man who lived beside him. Chopin is known for his beautiful compositions, but countless others died without recognition because they never utilized the power of permanence and paper. We hold our scribes and composers in high regard, up with our kings and conquerors, because a great writer does not die, but lives on in his words.
Every human has one last written document; one that once signed signifies the end of that person’s life. One day the Earth may share that same fate, and the stroke of a pen may bring about the execution of human civilization by way of nuclear or biological warfare. But even on that dark day we will not be questioning writing’s worth, because writing is the tool that has aided us in encompassing the ultimate power of creating or destroying anything that we can, even ourselves; and that is as close to godliness as you can get.