The world today is a saturated one. Our connectedness, and by that I mean our “technological dependence”, is tiresome, tedious, and also quite fragile. It seems that no one is ever available, no one is ever in charge, nobody knows how anything works. Some parts are made in-house, others are imported.
“I am sorry, you’ve got the wrong department”,
“That’s not what our records show”,
“I can’t authorize this, you’ll need to speak with..”
We have blasted away much of our interpersonal connection with obstacle courses that lead to dead ends, dropped calls, wrong turns and then having to start over, having to explain again to a new chatbot, a new customer rep, a new service agent. If, of course, you are lucky to be met with one at all.
I digress––I could write, if for no other reason than my own therapy, an entire series of criticisms of our very modern, technological world. In fact, I already have. Instead of airing out those frustrations, it may be more productive to offer an antidote to those grievances, a respite, if you will, from modern times. I believe that antidote to be the simple practice of putting words on the page.
Writing is simple; however, it should not be mistaken for being easy. Great writing can be very difficult and is usually accomplished only after years and years of producing mediocrity if it is ever accomplished at all. For some, even bad writing can be difficult and this is brought about for several reasons. However, the reasons that make writing a difficult task are the very same reasons that make it virtuous.
There are many lines about writing that involve a kind of cynical pain. It was attributed to Hemingway, “writing is easy, you just sit at the typewriter and bleed” or another similar quote “writing is not hard, you just sit until blood drops start to form on your forehead.” Of course, lines like these are not very encouraging, but they are an attempt to explain what we mostly all recognize as the turmoil and torment of the artist, wrestling with themselves, the world, their craft, hoping to come to some resolution about the box we are all in, that box we call life––that precious thing that is part blessing, part curse, is relentless, fascinating, terrifying and wonderful. Yes, the artist as a writer and therefore existential hero can be quite a daunting figure to replicate, with a dense tragic sensibility, their lives are not reproducible, or at the very least, are not very inviting; do not encourage a sensible person to try.
But, as I mentioned, what makes writing difficult also, too, makes it virtuous. In order to write, you first need to do a bit of thinking. Good writing, generally speaking, is good thinking. There becomes a kind of responsibility of the intellect, a shaking of the hands of the mind and body––you become adept at writing what you think, and, once read, hopefully also, thinking what you wrote. There exists a series of, or one continuous phase of confirmation. For example, some people may have various and fleeting ideas about a subject Y, only after writing down what they think about Y, do they realize they know absolutely nothing about Y, have made terrible assumptions about it, and their previous thoughts about Y, once put on paper, sound completely ridiculous.
However, without the process of writing and the practice of some level of introspection and honesty, we may still go on believing ourselves about Y out of habit. There is something more confrontational when seeing your thoughts staring back at you in black and white. And when you find yourself saying “I am desperately full of shit”, you can change your mind or better learn the subject at hand. This can be difficult, but generally, growth usually is.
Writing, of course, is not limited to intellectual discovery; personal discovery is also a byproduct of practicing the written word. It is an act that, above all arts, is easier to connect with self-discovery. You not only can reveal what you think about something, but how you think in general; But, too, and just as important, how you may also feel about someone or something. Like intellectual thinking, the call and response to emotional authenticity and accuracy can be learned and matured, nurtured and mastered through writing.
And yet, I am here making no effort or point to turn the reader into a writer. Frankly, I believe there is already enough of us, honestly. I believe that one ought to write, whether public or private, whether a treatise on how you think or how you feel, or whether or not it is any good. To write, as to read, one must sit still, be focused on a thing. To write is to sit with yourself and stew, to collect those thoughts and concretize them––those thoughts that dash and dart throughout our hearts and our brains eight days a week.
I believe that whether you are a pizza maker, or a cop, a plumber or lumberjack, that a few hours of writing a week can make you better at what you do, more understanding of why you do it, and either strengthen the resolve to keep doing it, or strengthen the nerve to up and quit, move on, and go do something else.
I began this piece describing a world so very technologically connected, albeit shattered and frayed in many ways. I am convinced that human lives will not be made any easier, more meaningful, or better simply by technological advancements. I sound like a luddite, but I am not. I simply believe that man’s problems are internal, spiritual, even. I don’t mean the spiritual nature of the heavens, the infinite celeste, god and so on.
I simply mean that man’s spirit is the driving force of our existence––it determines the quality of our joy, the depths of our despair, the exactitude of our euphoria or languishment. I believe writing, not for fame or fortune, or for any particular reason at all, unlocks something in man’s nature and spirit. Whatever the case, among the many gifts humankind was given, writing sits comfortably towards the top of those gifts, towards the top of what separates us from beasts. And truthfully, there is precious little that does that, so we should answer that gift by using it frequently.
JSV
2025
Judson Stacy Vereen is the author of American Pleasure, 62 Poems from Judson Vereen, and Like A Bird Knows To Sing. He is also a staff contributor to Wrong Speak, where he publishes a bi-monthly opinion column. His substack page is Dispatches from Bohemian Splendor.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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Well written.
Yes, you keep telling me that 😉