On the Subjects of Writing, Blogging

Until the Internet provided everyone with an equally loud voice, I didn't appreciate just how many obnoxious, ignorant, stubbornly-opinionated people there were in the world. I was doubly shocked at how many people couldn't spell, couldn't write a coherent sentence, or who thought that typing in all caps or adding rows of exclamation points helped get their viewpoint across.


I guess that my resistance to creating and maintaining a blog has always originated in the belief that I do have the intelligence and depth to have formed well-considered opinions on any number of subjects, ranging from politics to religions, economic theory to global environmental concerns. I have also kept the rationale that I prefer to control with whom my opinions are shared. I am not considering anyone unworthy of my ponderings and the conclusions I have drawn from them, but many have clearly demonstrated that they lack both the comprehension skills necessary to fully appreciate the end results and the desire to be confronted with a concept not of their own creation.


For this reason, you will rarely find in any of my emails, instant messages, or blog postings any emoticons whatsoever. Though it may mark me as somewhat old fashioned, I sincerely believe that the words I choose and their context should be able to provide sufficient evidence to the reader that the text in question was meant to be humorous or sarcastic or insulting. If a reader needs emoticons to appreciate the "mood" of my writing, then either I have failed as a writer or they have failed as a reader. Animated emoticons insult me more in that not only are they wasting my time, but also wasting valuable CPU cycles.


On the subject of being rather old fashioned, I have considered lately that the process of actually taking a pen in hand and manually writing out a letter to someone on well-crafted stationary has become such an unthinkable task that it has gained an immeasurable amount of class status to actually accomplish this. Unlike emails and instant messages, it is very difficult to multi-task while you are writing a letter by hand. You have to concentrate on what you want to say because you can not cut-and-paste a written letter together, though I guess people who create ransom notes are known for doing something fairly similar. And of course, mailing such a letter with the post office immediately adds class status to the correspondence by indicating to all that what you have written does not fall into any category of immediate, urgent, or time-sensitive material with which lower classes of people are forced to concern themselves. If you want to strike a blow against our modern, frenetic world, go buy some stamps, good stationery, and an ink pen. Extra points if it's a fountain pen.