Why The Written Word Still Matters Most: Part One
I wonder if a Walden of the mind is achievable, a scaled version of Henry David Thoreau’s withdrawal from society into the woods, a retreat into the nature of printed pages. I’m speaking of a removal from digital life into analog existence. Is it not near the same for a man in 2020 to revert to 1950 technology as it was for Thoreau to pine after the pioneer ethic? The distances through time are comparable. Maybe the pull to our “roots” is always going to be subject to the passage of time. I don’t feel a kinship with the pioneers, but I do with people who had books but no computers.
Perhaps it is only vanity and misplaced nostalgia. Still, I can’t help but feel there is truth in it. I know in my soul that the social internet is more a force for bad than good. It is the embodiment of an unnecessary telegraph between Maine and Texas that so aggravated Thoreau. But now instead of Maine and Texas, there is a line between every “modern” person and we’ve found no one has much that’s interesting to say.
When the options available to a 21st century peoples are surveyed, numerous as they are, does taking up a pen and paper, or reading a book make her a strange outcast of a type? There are still readers and writers, but dwindling as a percentage of the whole, and all we hear about is virtual reality. I don’t think most people are familiar enough with reality to distinguish the virtual from the actual. Maybe the whole project would be moot if any of us cared to pay attention half as well as the engineer tasked with re-creating what we don’t look at in the first place.
More likely our virtual reality will be far “grander,” bringing any appreciation of the actual, and literary attempts to imitate the actual, to an even “lower” plane. A book has no definite form, for it changes with each reader, our individual minds creating an infinite variety of experience, even as it pertains to the same reader, coming back to the same text as an older, different person, thus altering the experience. Even simple language can accomplish so much more than most meticulously-sculpted digital forms of reality. If an author tells of a blue car, he has made a variety of blue cars equal to the number of readers he can attain.
There is a vastness to the written word that cannot be fully realized tangibly. This is obvious in film adaptations of books, some of which are admirable works of art in their own right, but are only a reflection, not a stand-in. The written word is far from a perfect medium, but its variability makes it the best we have to describe actual and potential realities. In an increasingly visual world, we are in danger of losing this variability in favor of an algorithmic measurement of the mean of beauty.
Another benefit of the interplay between reader and writer, more frequently referred to as a “meeting of the minds” is that it makes reading an inherently active vocation. The nature of writing need not be explained as active, but reading, while relaxing to many people, is not a habit grown of indolence. It is relaxing precisely because it requires an active mind. It is a workout that leaves the exerciser feeling rejuvenated. The act of creation is a burden shared by author and reader alike, the latter reliably removed from the buzzing of his workaday mind for the period it is occupied in the sculpting of word clay into a recognizable reality.
This is not as easily accomplished by watching a film or playing a game. As good as film effects have gotten, they will never live up to what appears fully-realized in our minds. Something ineffable sticks in the craw of the viewer, tugs his shirt like a toddler to remind him of the unreality of the CGI monster. This is not a fault of special effects, but a success of the human mind. As the image creators can never appeal to or mimic the imagination of each individual viewer, it results in a dilution process so that the greatest number of people possible might theoretically approve.
In the field of virtual reality, which we are reliably told is coming soon, there is an additional problem that is extant, one inherited from that of movies, games, and other visual mediums. Who is it that is creating these virtual playgrounds? As virtual reality is under the umbrella of computer science, the answer is white men in their twenties and thirties. The fields of movies and television are grappling with their own issues of diversity, but both pale in comparison to the issues in tech. There have been enough highly-publicized scandals for me to abstain from making pointed references here.
But diversity of thought is no minor issue as it pertains to world creation. Does the mean of beauty, enjoyment, or whatever else might be found in a virtual world, as defined by this small group of people going to encompass an experience desirable or even workable for those out of the social group of the creators? Like early religious peoples, what conclusions might we early virtual peoples draw about our gods? Why does the world of their creation not live up to my expectations?
Diversity is a good thing, but realistically no team of engineers and designers will be able to please everyone. Eventually, they too will run into the same wall as the purveyors of CGI monsters. I argue that the purest form of world creation is deeply personal and cannot be found from a corporate-sponsored project, no matter how ambitious or well-intentioned. The most satisfying virtual reality experience is wont to be one that begins with a blank notebook and a writing utensil.
What if I am proven wrong? What if we are able to achieve the freedom of creation on a digital scale to match the empty notebook? What then? History tells us it isn’t all hunky dory. I’ve written already in about our resounding “success” in the field of communication with social media. We are able to be in contact with everyone we’ve ever known at any time. Has this resulted in a more “connected” world? Are we closer to understanding each other? Happier? All available metrics point to the opposite. We are more miserable than ever in spite of our infinite levels of connectedness.
Is there any reason to believe that infinite loops of user-generated content creation will make us happier, or infinitely entertained? I suggest the same principle applies. The infinite scroll of the social internet is bad for the same reason. We need tangible beginnings and endings. When are we fully caught up with our friends on social media? Never. The scroll always goes on because it is profitable to the social media companies for us to remain for longer and longer periods of time on their service. The same applies to virtual reality.
When we are writing or reading for ourselves, the guidelines are easy and the potential for manipulation is limited. I write until I am tired or done with what I need to say. I’m done reading whenever the book is done. It has a finite number of pages. Do you imagine the purveyors of virtual reality technology will exercise any more restraint than social media companies in vying for your most important asset, your time? I can’t imagine why they would. We’ve given them no incentive to do so. So I’ll speak from both sides of my mouth. Writing is pure creation, but also lets you set your own guidelines largely free of manipulation. In a sense, its greatest accomplishment is both its infinite possibilities and the finite, fragile nature of human bodies.
