John Updike said writing is a way of taming the world. It is certainly a way of trying to define it. It may be a way to confine it.

It may also be a way of taming the soul. I suspect that the world continues along untamed, as wild as ever, despite anything written.

The writer, on the other hand, may be tamed. He expresses his thoughts and flings his emotions onto paper with an abandon he cannot summon in personal encounters. He suspects that no one would take the time to listen, at least no one sober.

But, place the words onto pristine white paper, or a blank monitor screen, and they take on weight. Maybe they take on magnetism, instead, and attract the eyes of those who also want to ponder, but do not want to express, at least not yet.