“There are words in the soul of a newborn baby, wanting and waiting to be written.” ~ Toba Beta.

Until the other day, I had no idea who Toba Beta was—I read this saying on a friend’s blog that stuck with me, and now I am trying to find the words to further express what this author might’ve meant…

From a writer’s perspective, that quote feels almost autobiographical — not about babies alone, but about all of us before we learn how to translate ourselves.

When Toba Beta speaks of “words in the soul,” a writer might hear something familiar: the sense that expression precedes vocabulary. Before a child knows language, there is sensation. Before grammar, there is longing. Before sentences, there is story.

A writer understands this instinctively. We do not create meaning out of nothing. We uncover it. We sense that somewhere beneath memory, beneath habit, beneath the noise of the world, there is something wordless pressing upward. Writing is the act of midwifery — drawing breath into what has silently existed.

A newborn cannot yet speak, but a writer recognizes the tension: that restless interior presence that wants form. The baby cries; the writer drafts. Both are early attempts at articulation.

From a writer’s lens, the quote may suggest:

• Identity is narrative. We become ourselves by learning to “write” what we feel.
• Language is revelation. Words don’t invent the soul; they expose it.
• Life is authorship. We are both the manuscript and the hand that revises it.

There’s also something tender and humbling here. A baby carries unwritten poetry — untouched by cynicism, unedited by fear. Writers often spend years trying to recover that original voice, that unfiltered truth, before self-consciousness silences it.

In that sense, the newborn represents pure, unwritten potential — and the writer’s task is to remain brave enough to write what the soul already knows.

Every human being enters the world as a closed book already filled with invisible ink. Time, love, sorrow, and courage bring the pages to light. The writer’s role is not to fabricate the story, but to press gently until the hidden script appears.”

What do you think?

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This post is dedicated to DAP, whose blog is very inspiring. Be sure to stop by, you’ll be blessed. Thank you, my friend.