Power of Words

A few days ago, I was introduced to a website called Wordle by Sraikh of ASAAN fame. :) Wordle creates a word cloud (similar to the wordpress-generated category-cloud that I have to the right of this text on this page) from the text we provide. You can also submit your blog address and Wordle would pick the words most used in the blog to form a word cloud. I tried to experiment with it using a blog I had a few years ago and my present blog. The blog that I used to write a few years ago was during a very bleak phase of my life. Sadness and unhappiness were my prominent emotions at the time. Therefore, it was not a surprize at all when my old blog’s word cloud exposed the same theme. The blog was dominated by a lot of negative words whereas the current blog is more neutral. Goes to show how powerful words really are in expressing our inner state without us even realizing it. Psychologists say that expressing feelings and crying out the tears help us heal emotionally. We feel lighter by getting rid of any emotional stress and burden that we carry as spoken words or as tears. Same must be true for writing as well. More we write … truthfully … from our heart … let the words flow as they come to fingers … the better we feel mentally, emotionally et spiritually (ooh Pati just cringed reading the word ’spiritually’ hehe). Before I further bore you by dragging this post on to another one of my philosophically insightful discovery paths, I’ll share the two word clouds I spoke about and let you see the difference for yourself.

The Old Blog Cluster

vs.

The Present Day Cluster

As obvious, the Old Blog cluster is dominated with words like:

- dark

- cold

- foul

- sobbed

- sadness

- emotions

- honor

- divided

- bitter

- cynical

- lost

- and so on.

I honestly didn’t realize that I was writing all these negative words. I was merely writing as I felt. Now, when I look at this cluster, it doesn’t surprize me but it does bring a smile to my face knowing that I’ve indeed grown out of it and am learning to find my own happiness. It’s true that the Present Blog cluster doesn’t ooze of predominantly happy emotions either but it surely presents a more balanced picture. That’s exactly what we should strive for, isn’t it? A balance. Something that we call ‘whole’ encompassing both the positives and negatives of life and blending them together in harmony. With that note, I end this post for today and encourage you to experiment with Wordle. It only takes words from the first few posts in account though as I discover now but, in any case, it surely is an interesting site if you like playing with words. :)