In a world of text messages, tweets, abbreviations, purposefully misspelled words and lots of lower case sentences without punctuation, a beautifully written idea stands out. People “write” for engagement these days, they “write” impulsively. They have a quick thought and they publish that thought into the ethos without much consideration and without crafting the right words. Why write though? Why is it valuable to sit down with an idea, critically think about it, and then take the time to choose words wisely?
It is interesting how reading a well written sentence can touch something in you that you didn’t even know was there until you read the words. A sentence can strike so true to you that it evokes a feeling. It crosses over from the mind into the soul. It could be something that you have never consciously thought about, but upon seeing the words laid out you recognize truth immediately. If you trace this backwards you realize that those words that rang true to your soul were once in someone else’s mind. A carefully constructed string of words that eloquently lays out an idea sticks with the reader. The reader will have those words in their head long after first encountering them. With those words spinning around in their consciousness the reader may take or not take some action. Over time those words may start to change the reader and impact how they see the world. That is powerful. But is the benefit only to the reader or does the writer also profit? Is writing only a giving act or is it also for the self?
In this inaugural post an introduction must be made to the one that inspired the creation of “Image and Dust”, Gigi. Here is the first, but most assuredly not the last, quote from his work. You are welcome in advance for the genius you will encounter on the other side of that link.
“properly expressing one’s thoughts in writing, is hard. Writing forces you to structure your thoughts. Structuring your thoughts - and by extension, yourself - can be a painful process.” - Words by Gigi
Writing is hard, but necessary. It forces the writer to confront his or her ideas. Approach the thoughts in their head and attempt to pull them out into reality. Sometimes during this extraction process the writer discovers that the thoughts do not fit into reality. This can be confusing and disorienting. But where did those thoughts come from to begin with? Do we know? Is it possible they came from an unreliable source and they are not true and therefore do not exist in reality. How else would we know if those thoughts are valid if they only ever live in our heads? This conflict is what makes writing hard, but that is the point.
“I love humanity. We’re smart, powerful, and have awesome technological capabilities. In fact, I believe that we’re too smart, too powerful, and too technologically capable. Maybe some things shouldn’t be made to be easy. Maybe some things are meant to be hard. Maybe knowing the difference between those two is wisdom.” - Displays by Gigi
The 2024 human mind is a cluttered place. Bombarded with information. Sometimes numerous thoughts will arrive at the same time and it is difficult to know which to process first. At any given time throughout the day there are several threads of consciousness running simultaneously. The mind must work like a computer operating system, scheduling time for different tasks to take place on the processor. The human CPU is rarely idle. Rarely is it sitting and waiting for what is next. It has a long backlog of information to churn through.
Where does this information come from? Some is obvious… the screen several inches in front of your face. Some is not so obvious. Some thoughts are so random it surprises you and you don’t even know what it means. How could I spontaneously begin thinking about something that I did not see, hear or read and have never thought about before. Where does this noise come from? Is it me? Regardless, the information continues to flow. Andrew Sullivan puts it this way in his essay “I Used to Be a Human Being”:
“But this new epidemic of distraction is our civilization’s specific weakness. And its threat is not so much to our minds, even as they shape-shift under the pressure. The threat is to our souls. At this rate, if the noise does not relent, we might even forget we have any.”
An individual living in the world today could meander through their day and keep their mind actively engaged with some kind of stimulus for every second. If they are not intentional about it, they will just be constantly thinking and reacting to whatever happens to be in front of them. The Amazon add for a new documentary about some problem on the other side of the world, the article about how to prevent some sickness, the latest news about a tech company and their stock, and on and on and on it goes. Those mysterious internal thoughts with an unknown source may never get any processing time. And if they do get some CPU time they will continuously be interrupted by “higher priority” tasks coming in from the IO devices. Over time it seems all of this noise can become the norm. It becomes the standard background track of life. White noise buzzing along until we fall asleep and then waking us up again to continue the barrage.
Can writing help quiet the noise? Can writing help us focus? Can letting some of the noise in the mind leak out into words release some of the pressure? Will that turn the volume down on the white noise?
Humans are dropped onto earth with very little context. We are born into an unfamiliar place with no explicit instructions. We must find our own way. Learn. Explore. But we are all striving toward something. Otherwise why would we be in a constant search for meaning. The Greek word for this end is “telos”. Finding that telos and journeying towards it requires clarity. It requires peace. It requires quiet.
“and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life”
“Image and Dust” exists as a place for a new writer to explore ideas by pulling thoughts out of a cluttered mind, cutting through the noise and attempting to manifest those thoughts into words that will connect with people, help quiet the mind and in the end, move the author and reader towards the telos.