Writing on Writing

Well, I guess I'll write about writing.  I always get this image of a dog chasing its own tail when I try to express my feelings for writing in general.  But life tends to be cyclical anyway, so maybe that dog knows something.  I have been writing my whole life, and in the past year have begun sending pieces to various sites to be published, or to enter a contest.  I don't have any high hopes, mind you, but I can always tell myself there is a reason behind doing this. 
Writing, I find, can be either the most tedious exercise of the mind, or the most freeing expression of the soul.  Or both.  Anything felt, anything seen, anything experienced is a good candidate for a piece of written work.  And anything written, especially in poetic form, can be anything else, within reason.  My heart can be a bird, my mind a factory, and my body a prison.  Or I could focus on a loved one's lips and turn them into rose petals.  Passion is like whiskey on paper, I find.  It gets the belly warmed up and turns the head.  Analysis is an affair of details, and more details, and eventually, even more details.  But there's a great deal to find in the little things.  Even hobbits have become popular in this day and age.  And I always felt, when reading the books of Tolkien long ago, that I was experiencing something unique and magical that no one else could touch.  My own little world.  Well, suffice it to say that world is still safe; the movies don't nearly do it enough justice to evoke the reactions and visions I had while dreaming. 
But this is really what writing is all about...dreaming.  It's an active exploration of the subconscious in a seemingly benign way.  A well written story is just an endless series of visions.  Words cease to have meaning while reading a good book.  How often have you not noticed that you have hands and eyes, or a body at all, until many chapters later your friend calls you or your wife reminds you it is dinner time.  Well, that's my goal.  I wish to write in such a way that my words will allow others to transcend physical space and time into a region of the heart where everything becomes real.  More so than reality itself.  I think it is a worthy goal to have.  In today's world, people have so many easy escapes; television, radio, fast cars, fast food, and not to mention drugs.  I want to give them an escape that they work for.  I want my readers to feel the mental connections to reality gently give way as their attention becomes fixed on my writing.  I want to provide them with wings to fly to other worlds, to see the soul of humanity painted with so many colors that at times there is no other feeling to be had but one of revelation.  I want to inspire those hard-nosed, book avoiding, but able minded people to actually pursue reading: just for the pleasure of it! 
But to be inspiring one must first be inspired, and only living life can do this for someone.  One cannot write what they don't have knowledge or experience of.  Not so convincingly as to bring other people willingly into a trance.  So that's it, really.  Reading and writing to me is (or should be) as metaphysical as transcendental meditation or a peyote ceremony.  A good book not only overshadows reality, but defines it.  As the book is passed around, it starts a movement, and this movement brings people together.  So the potential of writing (or any art form, really) is the potential to touch people's lives and even change them.  Now, this formerly ambiguous form of expression is much more.  Much more than an avenue for feelings hidden within.  It is a way to speak to people, and to make them see things they have never considered.  It is a path towards a creative form of enlightenment.