Writing

Writing was not the first technology invented by humankind. That award goes to "sharp broken rock." Nevertheless, writing was crucially important because it was the first technology that allowed for anyone to feel smugly superior to anyone else no matter how disadvantaged you were.

You could be a beggar living naked and filthy in a big barrel in the marketplace and consider yourself better than the richest and cleanest man in town just because you write so much better than he does. That is the power of writing.

So where is writing today? Do people still write things? Sure they do. Go to any vertically oriented video app and you'll see writing all over the place with deeply smug people pointing at it or staring at you with dull unfeeling eyes. Or dancing, they dance a lot too.

"This guy doesn't even know how to watch a video," jeers a local teen.

"He must be one of those millennials," says his friend, "They need everything in writing."

"Doesn't even know how to skip to the part you need, or watch it at 2x speed."

"Yeah grandpa just scrobble to the important-"

"What?"

"Did you say scrobble?" asks the teen, "I don't think teens say scrobble."

"Oh yeah? Well what do they say?" His friend glares defiantly.

"They say," the teen searched for a word. "I don't know what they say." Cold realization dusks over his face. "Oh God. He's doing it."

"Doing what?" Asks the friend.

"He's writing. Us. We're just another of his... his..." The teen thought through all the things he ever learned in English class. It didn't take long. "One of his thingies." he concluded limply.

"What do we do?" asks the friend,

"We fight," says the teen, steely determination winning out over fear.

Writing stops being good for much once it gets too self-aware so I banish the teens back from whence they came. They do have a point, though, is probably not mind video so much if I spent more time with it. But I AM old. I didn't grow up with video as the default way I took in information. On my TV if I flipped the channel more than twice I ran out of channels to flip to. And then, just as now, there was never anything good on.

WIP