Writing to Right

Can writing right the world?

An Essay

People all over the world have been creating media in the form of writing essays since writing began. Today, we create and publish more media than ever before. Even video can be considered written media and expresses ideas.

• Globally, around 2.7 billion blog posts are published each year, with most sources estimating 7.5 million new posts daily across all platforms, says Copilot.

  
  

• There is no single fixed number of editorials published each year, month, or week — you can estimate based on the number of issues per year and the average number of editorials per issue. Mind-boggling!

1. As of 2026, YouTube sees roughly 20 million new videos per day, about 600 million per month, and over 1.8 billion per year

Information clogs the world's arteries.

Sometimes, it's best to tune out and tune within.

But we must keep abreast of cultural, political, educational, social, industrial, medical, and financial news to survive, and our ability to do so and give input into its systems helps to shape the world our descendants will inherit.

Do we want to leave behind a broken world that has already used up its limited beliefs? A cruel world where war is the only answer to war? An us-versus-them world? Or are we going to teach by example and live up to the expectations of our religious creeds and our humanitarianism?

This is the matter that should be keeping us awake: How am I going to show up in the world for the future? As the status quo or a shaker and mover (or is it mover and shaker?)? I think I chose the latter many eons ago.

I believe media changes the world for better or for worse. The essay is media's foundational leg

Here's a list of prominent essayists and their contributions:

Essayist	Most Famous Work (or Major Essay Collection)	Principal Topics, Theses, and Arguments	Experiences and Contributions to Their Reputation
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), France	Essays (1580–1588)	Explored human nature, self-knowledge, morality, education, friendship, and skepticism. Argued that questioning our beliefs and examining our experiences are essential to understanding ourselves and others.	A French Renaissance philosopher and public official who withdrew from public life to reflect on his experiences. He popularized the personal essay as a literary form, using himself as the subject of philosophical investigation.
Francis Bacon (1561–1626), England	Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral (1597–1625)	Examined truth, ambition, friendship, education, power, morality, and human behavior. Advocated practical wisdom, observation, and reason as instruments for improving human affairs.	An English philosopher, statesman, and pioneer of empirical reasoning. His political career and philosophical investigations influenced his concise, analytical approach to essay writing.
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941), England	A Room of One’s Own (1929)	Explored women’s intellectual independence, artistic creativity, gender inequality, and the social conditions necessary for literary achievement. Argued that women need financial independence and personal space to develop their creative potential.	A central figure in literary modernism who challenged traditional narrative conventions and male-dominated literary institutions. Her experiences as a woman writer shaped her influential feminist literary criticism.
George Orwell (1903–1950), England	Politics and the English Language (1946)	Examined political propaganda, linguistic manipulation, intellectual dishonesty, and the relationship between language and power. Argued that unclear, inflated language can conceal uncomfortable truths and facilitate political manipulation.	His experiences with British imperialism in Burma, poverty in Europe, and the Spanish Civil War shaped his opposition to authoritarianism and political deception. He became one of the twentieth century’s most influential political essayists.
James Baldwin (1924–1987), United States	Notes of a Native Son (1955)	Investigated racism, identity, religion, sexuality, social injustice, and the contradictions between American democratic ideals and lived reality. Argued that genuine social transformation requires confronting historical injustice and examining our deepest prejudices.	Growing up Black and gay in Harlem, experiencing racial discrimination, and living as an expatriate in France informed his work. His eloquent criticism of American racism made him an important intellectual voice of the civil rights era.
Joan Didion (1934–2021), United States	Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)	Examined cultural fragmentation, personal identity, political instability, and the stories people construct to make sense of experience. Her essays frequently reveal the distance between social myths and observable reality.	Her reporting on California counterculture, American politics, and social change established her reputation as a leading practitioner of New Journalism. Her distinctive observational style influenced generations of literary journalists.
Annie Dillard (born 1945), United States	Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974)	Explores nature, consciousness, spirituality, beauty, suffering, and humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Suggests that sustained observation can lead to philosophical insight and spiritual awakening.	Her close observations of the natural environment in Virginia inspired her Pulitzer Prize-winning work. She became known for combining scientific curiosity, contemplative writing, and poetic descriptions of nature.
Rebecca Solnit (born 1961), United States	Men Explain Things to Me (2014); Hope in the Dark (2004)	Investigates feminism, environmental justice, collective action, political resistance, and the transformative possibilities of hope. Argues that uncertainty about the future creates opportunities for meaningful social change.	Her experiences as an environmental and social activist inform her essays. She gained widespread recognition for examining gendered power relations and for presenting hope as a form of informed political engagement.
Peter Elbow (1935–2025), United States	Writing Without Teachers (1973)	Explored writing as discovery, freewriting, creativity, revision, and the relationship between language and thought. Argued that writers can develop their voices through experimentation and practice rather than relying exclusively on formal instruction.	His experiences struggling with academic writing influenced his development of process-oriented writing methods. He became an influential figure in composition studies and writing pedagogy.
Alice Walker (born 1944), United States	In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983)	Explores race, gender, spirituality, creativity, cultural inheritance, and the experiences of Black women. Argues that women’s artistic and intellectual contributions must be recovered and recognized as essential parts of cultural history.	Raised in rural Georgia during segregation, Walker participated in civil rights activism and developed the concept of womanism. Her essays connect personal history, ancestral memory, feminism, and social justice.
Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015), Uruguay	Open Veins of Latin America (1971); The Book of Embraces (1989)	Examined colonialism, economic exploitation, historical memory, cultural identity, and social inequality in Latin America. Argued that understanding the continent’s history requires examining how political and economic power shaped its development.	A journalist and writer who experienced political repression and exile during Latin America’s military dictatorships. His combination of historical criticism, poetic prose, and storytelling made him an influential voice in Latin American literature.

Essayist	Country / Cultural Tradition	Notable Work	Principal Contribution
José Martí (1853–1895)	Cuba	Nuestra América (1891)	Advocated Latin American cultural independence, political self-determination, and unity while warning against foreign domination and internal divisions.
José Enrique Rodó (1871–1917)	Uruguay	Ariel (1900)	Defended intellectual, spiritual, and cultural development against materialism and narrowly utilitarian ideas of progress.
Octavio Paz (1914–1998)	Mexico	The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950)	Explored Mexican identity, historical memory, solitude, cultural contradictions, and the relationship between individuals and society.
Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957)	Chile	Magisterio y niño (1979, posthumous collection)	Wrote about education, childhood, motherhood, social responsibility, and the moral importance of nurturing human development.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)	India	Sadhana: The Realisation of Life (1913)	Explored spirituality, the unity of existence, humanity’s relationship with nature, and the development of universal consciousness.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)	India	Hind Swaraj (1909)	Argued for self-rule grounded in ethical self-discipline, nonviolence, and a critique of modern industrial civilization.
Wole Soyinka (born 1934)	Nigeria	Myth, Literature and the African World (1976)	Examined African cultural traditions, mythology, artistic expression, and the relationship between literature and collective identity.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1938–2025)
	Kenya	Decolonising the Mind (1986)	Argued that language is central to cultural identity and that colonial linguistic hierarchies can perpetuate intellectual domination.
Daisaku Ikeda (1928–2023)	Japan	A New Humanism (1996)	Advanced Buddhist humanism, education, intercultural dialogue, and peace through individual transformation.

One of the most useful lessons these writers offer is that an essay is not simply a demonstration of what the writer knows.

It can also be an investigation into what the writer does not yet understand.

That distinction is a foundational principle of our writing method.

CAMP's curriculum moves through five intellectual stages:

Experience → Inquiry → Research → Reflection → Expression

in a non-linear way. Writers start where they want and move through the process according to their intuitive nature.

This method accommodates personal, academic, philosophical, political, and literary essays without requiring the writer to subscribe to a particular ideology. You could add a Reconsideration stage—the willingness to revise one’s conclusions when new evidence or understanding emerges.

That is especially appropriate when writing in the pursuit of truth.

The Essayist is a thinker who has pursued truth Across Civilizations: From Ancient Philosophical Inquiry to Contemporary Literary Journalism, the essayist has allowed us to examine our consciousness in traditions throughout North and South America, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Through essayists, we grasp the development and evolution of human civilization to see where it lacks consciousness and where it has come a long way.

give the future a higher consciousness

Write an essay from the coherence between your heart and brain.

Heart–brain coherence is a measurable state where your heart rhythm and brain activity synchronize, improving stress resilience, focus, and emotional regulation — all of which can enhance writing quality and creativity. You are in a state of altered consciousness. Your writing will be not only opinion but a rational thought, free of prejudice.

I love writing. Writing has been my destiny, and I embrace it. I don't know how far it will take me; I hope to become the writer I want to be. It seems that the writer I want to be is always in the making.

Here are ten essential rules for writing an effective essay

Family	Central question	Principal purpose
1. Expressive	What have I experienced?	Narrate, describe, and reflect
2. Exploratory	What do I want to understand?	Question, investigate, and discover
3. Explanatory	What do I know about this subject?	Inform and educate
4. Analytical	How and why does this happen?	Examine and interpret
5. Argumentative	What conclusion does the evidence support?	Reason, debate, and persuade
6. Contemplative	What does this mean for human existence?	Explore consciousness, ethics, and spirituality
7. Applied	How can this knowledge be used?	Solve problems, inform decisions, and create professional value

The important point is that essays can be classified by purpose, subject, structure, style, and audience.

An essay can belong to several categories simultaneously.

For example, an essay titled The Everglades: A Meditation on Humanity’s Relationship with Nature might be:

• Descriptive because it portrays the landscape.

• Personal because it includes lived experience.

• Environmental because it examines ecological relationships.

• Philosophical because it explores humanity’s place in nature.

• Reflective because it considers the meaning of the experience.

• Holistic because it connects these perspectives.

  
  

The whole world writes essays:

Tradition		Cultural origin	Characteristics
Zuihitsu		Japan	Personal observations, fragments, reflections, and associative writing
Sanwen	China		Broad tradition of literary prose, including reflective and informal writing
Suibi		China	Informal prose that follows the writer’s observations and thoughts
Adab		Arabic literary traditions	Broad tradition encompassing literature, cultivated knowledge, ethics, and instructive prose
Crónica		Latin America and the Spanish-speaking world	Literary journalism combining factual reporting, observation, and narrative
Testimonio		Latin America	First-person testimony emphasizing lived experience, often connected to collective or social concerns
Prabandha		South Asian literary traditions	A broad term with different historical uses, including modern essay writing in several languages

Who writes essays and why?

Writing purpose	Central question
Writing to express	What do I feel or believe?
Writing to understand	What can I discover through reflection and investigation?
Writing to right	How can my words challenge falsehood, encourage understanding, or contribute to positive change?

Famous Essayists

Author	Work	Relevance
Michel de Montaigne	Essays	The essay as personal inquiry
Francis Bacon	Essays	Concise reflection on practical and moral questions
Virginia Woolf	The Common Reader	Literary criticism and the essayistic voice
George Orwell	Politics and the English Language	Clarity, language, and political communication
James Baldwin	Notes of a Native Son	Personal experience and social criticism
Joan Didion	Slouching Towards Bethlehem	Observation, narrative, and cultural analysis
Annie Dillard	Teaching a Stone to Talk	Nature, contemplation, and philosophical inquiry
Rebecca Solnit	Hope in the Dark	Essays on history, uncertainty, and social change
Peter Elbow	Writing Without Teachers	Writing processes, discovery, and personal voice
Wayne C. Booth and colleagues	The Craft of Research	Research questions, evidence, and argumentation

Essayist	Why their work matters
Alice Walker	Essays connecting literature, spirituality, women’s experiences, and social consciousness.
Eduardo Galeano	Literary essays combining history, social criticism, and poetic storytelling.

Latin America: Identity, Humanity, and the Search for Truth

Essayist	Country	Principal interests	Suggested reading
Octavio Paz (1914–1998)	Mexico	Identity, solitude, spirituality, civilization	El laberinto de la soledad
José Martí (1853–1895)	Cuba	Human dignity, independence, education, unity	Nuestra América
Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015)	Uruguay	Historical memory, inequality, human solidarity	El libro de los abrazos
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)	Argentina	Metaphysics, literature, infinity, reality	Otras inquisiciones
Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957)	Chile	Education, motherhood, humanism, spirituality	Recados para hoy y mañana
Rosario Castellanos (1925–1974)	Mexico	Women’s intellectual independence, Indigenous cultures	Mujer que sabe latín…
Carlos Fuentes (1928–2012)	Mexico	Cultural identity, literature, history	El espejo enterrado
Ernesto Sábato (1911–2011)	Argentina	Ethics, existentialism, science, civilization	La resistencia
Leonardo Boff (1938– )	Brazil	Ecology, spirituality, ethics, social justice	Ecología: grito de la Tierra, grito de los pobres
Valeria Luiselli (1983– )	Mexico	Migration, borders, belonging, storytelling	Los niños perdidos

Asia: Consciousness, Philosophy, and Human Interdependence

Asian literary and philosophical traditions offer an essential counterlance to a history of essays centered on Europe.

Writer	Country or tradition	Principal interests	Suggested work
Rabindranath Tagore	India	Humanism, education, spirituality, unity	Sadhana: The Realisation of Life
Jiddu Krishnamurti	India	Consciousness, freedom, self-knowledge	Freedom from the Known
Arundhati Roy	India	Human rights, ecology, political criticism	Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction.
Pankaj Mishra	India	Buddhism, modernity, colonialism, history	An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World
Vandana Shiva	India	Ecology, biodiversity, traditional knowledge	Staying Alive
Thich Nhat Hanh	Vietnam	Mindfulness, compassion, peace, interbeing	Peace Is Every Step
Daisaku Ikeda (1928–2023)	Japan	Buddhist humanism, education, peace	A New Humanism
Yoko Tawada	Japan/Germany	Language, migration, cultural identity	Exophony
Han Kang	South Korea	Violence, memory, humanity, literature	Her Nobel lecture and literary reflections

Africa: Decolonizing Thought and Reclaiming Humanity

Africa offers an extraordinarily rich tradition of philosophical, cultural, and political nonfiction.

Essayist	Country	Principal interests	Suggested reading
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013)	Nigeria	Literature, cultural representation, colonialism	The Education of a British-Protected Child
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1938–2025)	Kenya	Language, culture, decolonization	Decolonising the Mind
Wole Soyinka	Nigeria	Literature, human rights, religion, society	Myth, Literature and the African World
Achille Mbembe	Cameroon	Identity, colonial history, political philosophy	Critique of Black Reason
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie	Nigeria	Identity, feminism, cultural narratives	We Should All Be Feminists
Aminata Traoré	Mali	Development, globalization, African autonomy	Le viol de l’imaginaire
Mia Couto	Mozambique	Literature, ecology, cultural imagination	Pensatempos

Can writing change the world, or does it first have to change the person holding the pen?

Have I developed my peace of mind enough to write an essay on how to live in peace within and without?  Can I write an essay to learn how live closer to peace? or about self- discovery?

I was a child when I learned that people you trust will break that bond.

Untold and unprocessed feelings, make learning take longer and cycles repeated.

Once you remember, that’s when the same lesson stops repeating itself.

After a while, you start asking the right question and dig deeper. As you do so, you will want to escape a plethora of feelings.

Don’t be afraid. It’s over.

Stare right into the scene. Suspend judgment. Suspend pain.

Turn the page.

Do that every time the lesson has to repeat.

Throw the memory into the river, watch it vanish downstream.

Look ahead. Remain steadfast.

Don’t look side to side and miss the target. Point your pen. Hunker down. And write.

Write to Right.

What do I want to right?

Sojourner said we should let woman turn the world right side up again.

can writing Right the Wrongs? those that have already happened and those that can be prevented

If you could write any wrongs into being, what would you do:

I would write into law to:

1. Give land in the West to the Freedmen’s descendants.

2. Use less data -  the future of humanity depends on how less dependent you become on data.

3. Grow our own food at home.

4. Live to make art. Art has no other purpose than to be.

5. Use art to create everything.

6. Allow the world to be nomadic. We will know no boundaries; the human race is the rightful owner of the planet.

When you're writing an essay or a blog:

1. Know your purpose	Decide what you want to explore, explain, question, or defend.	Gives the essay direction.
2. Identify your audience	Consider what readers already know and what they need to understand.	Establishes a connection.
3. Develop a central idea	Formulate a thesis, question, or guiding observation. Are bloggers essayists?	Prevents wandering.
4. Begin with a hook	Open with an observation, question, anecdote, or surprising fact. Am I an essayist?	Captures attention.
5. Organize your thoughts	Arrange ideas in a logical or purposeful sequence. Why do bloggers and essayists write?	Makes the argument understandable.
6. Develop one main idea per paragraph	Support each point with examples, reflection, or evidence. What differentiates a blogger from an essayist?	Creates clarity.
7. Use transitions	Connect paragraphs and ideas naturally.	Gives the essay continuity.
8. Support your assertions	Use facts, research, personal experiences, or credible quotations.	Builds credibility.
9. Maintain your voice	Write authentically while respecting your subject and audience.	Makes the essay distinctive.
10. Revise before publishing	Examine structure, reasoning, language, grammar, and accuracy.	Turns a draft into a finished work.