Tonight, I don’t feel like writing to no one. I’d rather be writing notes to Someone – but, dammit, I can’t; thanks to my erratic internet connection and low stationery supplies, it’s just me and the keyboard tonight.
Liberating in its way, I suppose?
I have a theory that all communication (including writing, of course, but going further to encompass all the rest) is looking for an audience – and I’ll stand by that theory. But I suppose when there is simply No Audience, all that self consciousness/consideration can fall away, and one can write … what one wants. Whatever comes to mind, without fear of disapprobation, of boring anyone, of going too far …
No. It’s no use. I don’t want to go too far tonight; the kind of writing I had in mind was more the kind of chatting-over-coffee, first-drink-in-the-pub, idle-talk-whilst-out-running kind of writing. Nothing profound, nothing controversial – just this and that, odds and sods – the detritus of the day, you might say. And why do we want to talk about that stuff, anyway, if it’s so insignificant? I say ‘we’; I think that’s fair – I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this urge to share. Well, I’ve thought about that a bit – and I think it’s a kind of Affirmation of Being. I’m not trying to be overly grand here, so bear with me: it strikes me that we’re all, consciously or otherwise, living AT one another in the normal run of things. Look at Facebook; look at Twitter. It’s thronging with folk desperate to make the day to day minutiae of modern life matter. It’s not enough that a thing should happen: before it can really count, it’s got to be told.
Of course, I think we’ve got a little extreme these days. Go to a gig, and what do you see? A sea of cameras and mobile phones, recording Now to keep for Later. Evidence, you see. I Was There. I saw it. Tourism’s overtaken with this compulsion to record; I’ve been there myself; I’m as guilty as the next person. Too busy framing the perfect picture of the Taj Mahal to really take it in. Too busy fumbling for my camera to soak up that stunning sunrise; composing the email or text that’s going to … well, what? There are plenty of uncharitable answers to that one – but I think, at root, it’s is nothing more than the desire to connect. To prove that one Is. Not enough to have seen a thing; done a thing; enjoyed it for itself; been fulfilled by the experience or swept away by the beauty. We hardly know how, any more. Only when we see ourselves – our thoughts, our dreams, our days – reflected back at us in the eyes and minds of others, acknowledged and refracted in the world’s commentary, do we truly feel that we have lived.
And is there anything wrong with that? Well, I’ve thought a bit about that one, too, and the answer’s no – but also yes. Let’s say, It Depends. Without this compulsion to communicate, to share, to interact, I’m not sure that we’d be fully human. They say, I think, that language is one of the defining features of the species. But perhaps it’s more the need for language; the need to be understood and to connect; than the fact of language itself that defines us.
That said, there must be limits. Yes! When I am King we’ll see some changes; oh, yes … But seriously. My worry is that this excess of sharing, the facebooking and the tweeting, the snapping, the texting and the filming, are getting between us and our Real Lives. One Life, Live It. Wise words indeed; spotted on the back of a touring caravan heading south on the A1. I like to think it wasn’t a caravan kitted out with plastic flowers and a satellite dish. Technology is a sweet temptation that we need to learn to resist. Yes, me too, absolutely; I’m working on it! Take that camera out of the picture. iPhone back in your pocket, please. Get out there! Let your mind do the recording; live a little; dream a little. Get back inside your head; be alone with yourself a little. Without urge to communicate, we wouldn’t be quite human: I stand by that.
BUT – and here’s my caveat – live first. Live, be, see. Breathe, enjoy, experience. Absorb, understand, appreciate. Enjoy – and enjoy it for YOU, not for what the world out there will think when they see, hear and read about whatever it is you’ve thought and seen and done. This is it; it’s all yours – and it’s all that ever will be yours. It’s your turn at life; it’s not coming round again. The sharing’s good. But the living’s got to come first …
Right. I’m not sure where that’s got me, but I have a sneaking feeling I may have just fallen foul of my own maxims here. Well, so be it. Just because I’m not practising what I preach doesn’t mean that what I’m preaching’s wrong … right? Right. And now I think it’s time for tea …
Over and out.
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