Writing is like touch.

T ouch is an action that allows your body to feel something outside it, to perceive the size, shape, texture, temperature, and hardness or softness of the object or being. As a sensation, it is about what happens inside of the person touching. Touch is also a force however light or firm, painful or delightful , that affects the creature being touched. It can convey feelings and meaning. It may assist or guide an action, such as assisting someone coming down a high step, and can indicate the need for attention, such as touching a companion and then pointing to an owl in the tree. Its effect may or may not match the intention of the toucher, and unintentional effects can be completely unknown to the one touching (an unexpected tap on the shoulder of someone with post-traumatic stress disorder). At its best, touch brings the toucher and the one touched into a shared union of feelings, of pleasure , and sometimes of communion. Of course, we cannot be in the world without touching and being touched; touch is essential to our well-being— the sensation of touch to our safety and our joy and sentient touch to our humanity. Writing, like touch, allows us to perceive what we are feeling and sensing. Unlike the unheard tree falling in the forest, we know writing , even if unread, affects us, the writer. It may satisfy, challenge, or frustrate us as it engages us in meaning and allows us to express and sort out feelings, often saving the world from having to withstand our rantings, confusion, or pain. The process itself of writing can be healing , both through the actual doing of it and through looking back at one's own growth. Writing, albeit an action, like touch, is also a way of knowing and learning. Writing can enable internal cognitive processes to develop, self-organize, and sometimes mature. And, like touch, writing enables us to communicate with the world outside our head. Here writing has a further reach than touch, moving beyond those nearby, to those remote both known and unknown, and to those in an unimaginable future. We may start out writing for ourselves, to " get out " our feelings, to sort out our experiences, to figure out our analysis of something, and with time and experience, use this writing to engage in a dialog with family, colleagues , or …