"It's really good to hear your voice saying my name
It sounds so sweet
Coming from the lips of an angel
Hearing those words - it makes me weak
And I never wanna say goodbye
But, girl, you make it hard to be faithful
With the lips of an angel"
~Lips of an Angel lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
What a different world it is since I used to write. Such a different space this is then the one I used to use as a platform for my thoughts and feelings. Now it's a platform for everyone's thoughts. No need to have the skill of putting words to the page; you barely need the ability to spell anymore. Between open letters and mommy/daddy/teen/pet blogs and keyboard warriors waging their war on every societal norm in which they disagree with their mighty typing. Hell, one doesn't even need a computer, because even the most powerful among us use their Twitter fingers with wild abandon to grammar, or sentence structure.
I have watch all this with sadness, as someone who has always cherished the written word. There was a time I would have told you my favorite book was a thesaurus. Yet now, after reading opinion after opinion, rant after rant, and sometimes just a steady stream of mental diarrhea that pours out of any screen lately, I feel an over-saturation. Why would anyone choose to read another random blog by an essential nobody, when there are all these celebrities to follow? Who even wants to read, when they can watch YouTube for hours or live feeds on any social media platform?
I do. I cherish books that thankfully still exist, and hope
that knowledge and enlightenment will not be replaced by ignorance and
intolerance. But, even I admit, I don't devour them like I used to. At the risk of sounding like and old person who is stubborn and steadfast in their ways, I just feel like we've lost something. A special thing that can't fully be replaced by videos and pictures and the collective opinion.
Being in the midst of someone who can truly articulate themselves, whether through writing or speech, is a beautiful thing. Words are a gift that are unique to us as humans, and I feel it slipping away. Almost like we are reverting back to a time when people communicated in grunts and by drawing pictures on walls. I read countless posts by young people who can't spell some of the simplest words correctly. I even read online articles from newspapers with so many typos, I wonder how no one cares. Why does no one care?
Then I realize it doesn't matter. Honestly, one middle-aged mom in Las Vegas has her heart hurt over the world's apathy toward the death of the written word. There are children dying of cancer, innocent people being murdered over their beliefs, poisons being released into our water, air, on soil, and I'm going to bitch about this? I understand how ridiculous that is. That's why I don't even see a point to this. Anything I have to say, anything I have even thought, has been expressed by someone else in a much better way on some other forum.
I suppose I can do it for me. Block comments so I don't have to listen to trolls who only want to feed on the sadness and insecurity they bring. Maybe. Writing is like a cherished lover to me, the thing I always drift back to because it ignites a passion and fills me inside like nothing else quite can, even after years away from it. By no means am I trying to say I'm a great writer. I am not. But, I strived to be, once upon a time.
Perhaps it is not the world I am so mad at, but at myself. I know there was a time where the potential was there, as well as the drive, and the world still wanted what I had to give, and yet I let that golden moment, that wisp of promise, slip away. And, for what? I'm sure for the thing most foolish young people throw away their dreams for. Love. As it turns out, it wasn't even for love, but just the hope of it. Not once, not twice, but many more times than should be allowed. A heart should not be allowed to break so much. Now I sit here, alone, with no desire for that thing I squandered dreams for, and nothing to show for it but the ghosts of my misplaced affections and the wisdom of hindsight.
Alas, the world has moved on, and that flicker of something I had in what seems like a different life is not anything of value here. I accept that. On top of that, there are countless tragedies far worse. I know. But, that doesn't make it less sad to me.
