The Power of Words

By David L. Brown

I have a confession to make: I am addicted to words and writing. They have held me in bondage for nearly all my life. To this date science has found no cure to this compulsion, a fact which I applaud, as any true addict would.

I have been in the thrall of words for more years than I care to admit. Words to me are like oxygen to non addicts. My house is filled with books and magazines. My TV sits lonely and covered with dust. I even read during meals,  a habit my mother-in-law  condemns but who can carry on a conversation with one’s mouth full? That’s bad manners, too, and you can learn far more from a book than any mother-in-law I’ve ever heard about.

I owe this obsession with words in part to my upbringing by addicted parents, a college professor and a former grade school teacher. From an early age I was tempted by those most alluring of all things, words, ideas and knowledge. I have always been surrounded by these and they are as important to me as heroin to any junkie.

When I am not reading, like as not I am writing. Reading and writing go hand in hand, for when you become hooked on the former it is an easy step to the next stage, writing. To illustrate the first steps down this path, here is a photo taken of me at about the age of two.

Now I am not going to claim that I was actually reading at that early age, but note the serious attention with which I was focused on the printed page. How I held the magazine with both hands in a natural, almost professional way. The admirable fact that I actually had it right side up. These are important clues to my future. Well, okay, I admit I was probably just looking at the pictures but you have to admit that scowl of concentration hints at deep curiosity about those printed words.

As time went on the attraction of words took root and grew. When I started school I already knew how to read. For a long time I assumed that my mother had taught me this useful trick. Many years later I happened to thank her for that. To my surprise she denied any role and told me that I had taught myself to read. When I thought about it I realized that it was pretty much the case, although I’m sure that Mom did help me along the way.

That step into a higher form of word addiction took place with the aid of a child’s blackboard that I received as a Christmas present. Like the  larger ones in schoolrooms of the time, my new possession had the letters of the alphabet printed across the top, both capital and lower case. I soon learned to write those letters with chalk and was well and truly on the path to lifelong word dependence.

It was no time at all before I was putting those letters together to make … words! I had reached word nirvana. I still recall the pride I felt in making first three letter words such as “cat” and “dog,” and then moving on to words of four, five, and even more letters. A true moment of insight came when I combined two words, “some” and “thing,” to make the compound word “something.” Nine letters!

It is not surprising that when I started school and was exposed to those dim bulbs Dick and Jane and their demented pets (”Run Spot run. See Spot run!”) I was less than inspired. I soon discovered far more entertaining food for my brain at the municipal library, a kind of crack house for word addicts. The library would let you check out only four books at a time and I would usually plow through two or three of them before bedtime. The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and such gems as Wind in the Willows, Doctor Dolittle and Moby Dick soon became part of my daily fix.

Moby Dick? Well, yeah. It was about a whale, you see, and what kid could resist? Who was to know it was supposed to be for adults. I may not have known all the words, but I read it when I was about seven. By that time I had already sunk deep into my lifelong dependence on words and writing.

There is no Betty Ford Clinic for word addicts, no Twelve Step Program (”My name is David and I am a word addict”) so I must report with chagrin that my addiction to the written word has lasted my entire life. I have made my living as a writer, spent endless nights reading, and now am even writing essays to exercise thoughts and ideas about my “substance” of choice, the written word. And, oh  yes, to let the commercial world know that I am available to apply my well-honed skills for their benefit.

Yes, I am a word addict, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.