Communication

“People write because no one listens,” went the meme, and I thought to myself how true that is. Certainly it’s one of the reasons I write. When I speak, even my wife and kids don’t listen to me. So, I write. But, as with speaking and nobody listening, there is always the possibility of writing when nobody is reading, I suppose. Nonetheless, writing allows the writer to live under the delusion that somebody will read it some day, somewhere, smack their palm against their forehead and shout “Holy Shit, this guy’s got it exactly right!” and it’s a justifiable hope because that has happened to some great writers.
The more I think about it, though, the more I think the meme was just nonsense. People don’t listen, not very well at any rate, not most of them, and I myself am guilty of being a bad listener at times. But, when that happens, most people just carry on talking, or talk louder, or punch you in the face. Most people. Because few people are writers.
But even that’s not true any more. With the advent of social media, everybody’s a writer. Oh, few people will ever produce a novel, and that’s a blessing, because even among the millions of people currently churning out novels, because self-publishing has made it possible, most are absolute crap. Very few will ever write a poem, and a quick look at any of the poetry sites on Facebook will convince anybody that that’s a blessing, too.
But, writing is to speaking as reading is to listening, and we’re not doing less of it, we’re doing more because even keeping a blog like this, even adding a smartass comment to a thread, counts as writing. It’s an elevation of the art of communicating. I guess the next step will be telepathy, but we’re not there yet.
Anyway, didn’t really have anything important to write about tonight, so this is it. I’ll try to say something of greater substance tomorrow.