This is an amusing little dispatch from Montaigne about the postal system of his time, the sport of riding horses as fast as possible, and various methods used to spread messages as quickly as possible. It’s interesting to me we can still watch movies where people sent telegrams and marveled at the speed. Today we take always available, just-in-time communications for granted.
I’ve been thinking about how technology changes the nature of communications. When we communicated to others via letters, there was an expectation that the writer would tell enough of a story to command a worthwhile response. You wouldn’t think of dashing off just a line—never mind an emoji. You would write everything necessary to hold space for a return letter and then give another response in time that included both acknowledgement and comment on what you’ve just read and any news that has happened since.
Now we see communications as an immediate reaction—what information does this person need, what mood do I want to convey? Expressions of social media should get reactions, not set off contemplation. In that respect, this project is the exact opposite of social media. It’s designed for non-reaction. The reader is supposed to consider the piece, not up or down vote it.
The difficulty for me as I go through the essays again, however, is the lack of any response, immediate or long-term. I know that I have readers because I see email click through and site hit numbers every day. But no one tells me a word about anything I write, other than the very occasional expression of support for what I’m doing. For someone so accustomed to getting feedback on every document I produce, this is strange terrain—I do not know how my readers react to the subjects I address, how I adapt day to day is entirely up to me. Are readers genuinely interested in my pieces or are they coming back day after day because it’s like watching a slow motion train wreck? I do not know.
I have even taken to asking AI chatbots what they think of the project, because at least they will give me a response. The Bing Chatbot is quite thoughtful, actually. Most of my readers won’t even tell me who they are. This makes the project seem like talking to myself knowing that unknown ears are listening in.
It all reminds me of one of my favorite movies, the Coen brothers’ “Barton Fink.” After the title character turns in a script for a wrestling movie that disappoints the studio brass, the studio president calls Fink on the carpet and tells him this:
You’re under contract and you’re gonna stay that way. Anything you write will be the property of Capitol Pictures. And Capitol Pictures will not produce anything you write.
I feel like I’ve taken up Barton Fink’s assignment, writing daily on subjects perhaps only I care about to no response, left to wrestle with my mind about whether the whole thing is going well. Perhaps it’s a waste of time … but perhaps it’s the purest form of writing possible.
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