Books.
Updated: Aug 28, 2020
Books are a manifestation of redemption; books grant the readers their desired escape from
reality. However, it is not the story that captivates the mind, but the carefully selected words.
Their sly, unnoticeable, and influential nature holds the mind a prisoner for as long as the eye
glances upon them. One may often notice the book, the story, the character, but only an
exceptional few notice the words. Whereas the words are the soul of the book, and in fact it’s
most influential part. We adamantly ignore the influence words have over us. Being an avid
reader, I have had countless opportunities to study the operation of particular words in
different manners. Words and authors beguile me, for they are the masters of not only their
work, but also the masters of the emotional roller coaster their readers’ experience. One
sentence has the power of altering a man’s perception.
One may be under the false pretense that words have no influence over our minds; one may
even believe that the influence of a word can never be overlooked, what they do not realize
is, just about how wrong they are. An example of the influence of a word on the mind can be
seen through a commonly used word: ‘magic’. For every living, breathing person on this
planet, the definition of magic is perceived differently – thus, having a different influence on
each person. The word magic creates an intense emotional reaction for most people and quite unnoticeably compels us to reveal our innermost adoration of a certain object, person, place, thing, and-or experience.
To understand the functioning of the word magic and its influence better, I asked a few of my
friends to answer a simple question: “What does magic mean to you, or how would you
define magic?”
I received a whole range of varying answers. To list a few: “Something unreal to the mind,
but convincing to the eye // a feeling or an emotion.”, “It’s the little things that people do for
you”, “Love is magical”, “Semi abstract- Little things that happen that surprise you,
revelation of secrets”, “Harry Potter and everything that it has taught me.”, “Transcends
human understanding”, and “football”. What I find intriguing about these responses is the
fact that I would successfully be able to identify the person behind each response. Be it a
word, or two sentences, each of the responses are unique to a singular person. Without
intending to, every answer unmasks a large percent of their character or personality – making
them easily identifiable. This is the evidence of the power of influence words have over us.
My best friend was a victim towards this unnoticed influence of words. She is secretly antisocial.
One day, she told me that no matter how big of a gesture someone makes; she will
always, always appreciate the little things more. She defined magic as ‘the little things people
do for her’. While attempting to define what a random word means to her, she unknowingly
let off a long kept secret – a secret only a selected few have the chance of knowing. This
proves that words influence our thought process without us realizing. Had she known that the
word ‘magic’ compels her to think of the thing that she has a deep admiration for rather than
a surreal person, place or experience, she would have chosen to not answer, or answer
differently.
Thus, I believe that no word in the dictionary should be left unnoticed. Words are created to
influence us, and their influence deserves to be noticed. It is the nature of words to exploit
our minds and trick us into submitting ourselves to the manipulative characteristics of
language. Man must always fear books and what is inside them, for words have the power to
change us.