What Did You Say?
I am not a good storyteller. I do not have the ability to capture audiences with my audible voice. They do not gather around me and hang onto every word I say. I am good for interjections, off-color comments and appropriate reactions. Never will I be able to tell a joke, relay a story or make up an outlandish tale for my interested friends. Instead, I write. I communicate with the written word, and capture the masses with simple yet full mots de moi. Only when I write, whether in a letter, an instant message, an email or a note, am I able to fully convey what I really want to express. The truth, the whole story, the honest, truthful story. Is this because I was raised in the time where internet, text messaging and postcards were big? Is the world becoming more reliant on their writing abilities than their speaking abilities? Is that the reason why so many things are misinterpreted and misconstreued? Speaking is about inflection and intensity and wit and dryness and volume, where as writing is merely reliant upon compostion and the building of words in a sentence. Who is keeping the art of speech alive? The President? Theatre companies? Debate teams? More and more people have blogs and newsletters and mass emails, etc etc. Are we reverting back to the times of Shakespeare and Homer and Martin Luther? Is writing now the base root of all expression? Will we evolve into those who cannot intonate or inflect or demand or sob? I hate answering my phone because I find myself uncomfortable in an audible conversation. Who will say goodbye first? Who will end the talking? Will there be silence? What if I stutter or say something that I didn’t mean? I can’t delete, I can’t erase, I can’t edit or walk away from it as I try to think of something witty and redeeming. I could tell you the world if you were only willing to read it.
