Thursday, April 9, 2009

Writing and Reading

I've had a very hectic month and I haven't blogged during that time. I thought about it a lot but I didn't do it. There's obviously a big difference between thought and action but when it comes to writing the difference is worth examining because its very interesting.

Right now I am sitting quietly and inventing these words. There's a difference from rumination in that I'm slowing down and focusing but its very closely related. Writing is very theraputic and mind altering I think because it changes the way you think as you do it but it's also very much like private thought.

But it has this public aspect.

You're reading this. I don't know when and I don't know where. I also don't know who you are (which something that changes with the medium and that alters the message...). But essentially you are now engaged in a private activity in which you're focusing on these words and this idea which is now affecting your thoughts and consciousness.

It seems to me that reading and writing are distinct from thought and action. They are a combination of both but they are really neither. Reading and writing are something else. When you think about it a strangely intimate means of communication.

Of course it doesn't really feel intimate does it? So obviously that's not the right word. What I am saying or writing here comes out of my thoughts directly to the screen and then, via the internet, directly into your head.

But its not intimate. I can't see you. But it is intimate in that we now have a connection. But its not in that I don't know you at all.

Intimate in one direction?

No.

Not private....

What is it?

2 comments:

  1. And maybe we don't know you. But the more we read the more we do. I was going to say this is very much like performing, what you wrote above and what I'm now writing in response. But now I'm thinking that we're now closer than a performer is to his audience, even before I wrote this.

    Now here's a question for you: Two people never meet. They both blog. They both read the other's blogs and comment on them. The comments drive the content, they are effecting each other. They get to know one another. The question is this: Can two two people fall in love using only words on a screen?

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  2. It's been months since I posted and months since your thought provoking response but when I finally came back and read it I was floored.

    My first response was "who are you?" but now thinking about it I don't want to know because it takes the magic out of the conversation or at least the rhetorical point.

    The answer to your question is interesting. I have heard of many people falling in love using only words on a screen but I never really believed it was possible. It seems to me that writing can reveal much but also can hide much.

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