Hail Wordsmiths! Hail Language as Art!

Hail Wordsmiths! Hail Language as Art! Hail Our Great Capacity to Articulate Dreams and Pummel the Machines Like Hard White Orbs Penetrating the Earth

Writing is being conquered by the invisibilities, the fairies, the electronic nymphs sliding line-by-line across screens with substance, structure, and even style. Wo the poets! Wo the novelists! Wo those who toil through the written word like detectives of the precision that brings us closer to truth. Oh those who toil face crushing competition from the flickering screens and automated prompts of this hyper era.

Veritas be damned! It’s all fine. Damn machines! We are flesh, blood, and bone, with a billion synapses that create their own electric will.

For a long time, words were hewn together enough to resemble a form that could be easily interpreted. If one wrote chair, it was chair. If one wrote, wooden chair, it was a wooden chair but asked the reader of what wood, of what grain, of what craftsmanship, and why wood instead of plastic? If one wrote wooden chair wedged beneath a brass doorknob, bending slightly toward the ceiling with each crushing blow, then a scene was established. Tension was established. The human thoughts turn to who was within and beyond the room with the chair. Thoughts turn to what will come next.

Sure. But the screens can do that as well with the right inputs—they are beyond instructions; we simply throw descriptions and prompts at them like coins in the Trevi Fountain.

Honestly, the crafting of written stories has long been subsumed by movies and shows. Reading a novel required a level of commitment that seemed less and less plausible and why when the movies could be so good?

Flitter, flatter, flutter. Flitter, flatter, flutter. Shiny, sparkly, bright. We sit, dazzled, collapsing into cushions as a thousand shards of light pummel us into submission. We love it. We want kings and queens. We don’t want to have to think. We don’t want to have to work. Just plug us in and take what you want. Just leave us alone.

Oh, hail the artists. They cause the head to fall askew. They erase juxtaposition and hard synapse training. They forge a new, from shards and bludgeons and diamonds and pearls.

Hail the wordsmiths! Not those who’ve toiled for clarity and precision. Not those who use words to spin stories. Not those essayists who pull our strings while other pull theirs. No, no. No, no.

Words are work. Words require thoughtful engagement. We need to keep looking, words after word, line after line, page after page. We need to supply the imagery, the provocations, the silent repose. We need to read. What a simple act and one honed when we are so young. Read. Read. Read! Let the words rush over you once, twice, thrice. Read them and think about it again, think about it anew. Let the words jolt you up and out; a curious creature of the world whose greatest joy is to grow and develop and produce. Let the words wash over you like juniper and gin. Let them swathe you in their vowels and let the hard consonants protect you from passivity.

Hail the words! Hail Wordsmiths! Hail Language as Art! Hail Our Great Capacity to Articulate Dreams and Pummel the Machines Like hard White Orbs Penetrating the Earth