I have been playing around on this Blogosphere for a few months and have noticed a few things. The very foremost and primary situation that I notice is the same item I have noticed in almost every other communicational medium I have been a part of since I have been connected to the Internet: miscommunication.
Over these past few days, I have already offended someone who misread the meaning of my post, and was surprised at the way someone else reported the content of my post. Miscommunication seems endemic to written communication in this age. Written communication was almost a lost art, as telephones usurped letter writing as the means of contact over distance. With the advent of the Internet, written communication reclaimed its place as the foremost form of communication, but on a scale heretofore unimagined. Any of us, with just a few keystrokes, can publish anything while instantly giving access to millions of others to what they have just produced.
Some are better writers than others. Some are more able to find the perfect wording to convey thoughts, ideas, facts and emotions. It is this last factor that eludes some, however, and it is from that fact, primarily, that most miscommunication results. In our face-to-face communication, we hear the words accompanied by body language and tonal inflection. Neither body language nor varied intonation is apparent in purely written form, so unless the words are sufficient to denote the emotion or emoticons are emplaced, a sentence could be seen by one reader as serious, while another might understand it is sarcastic or facetious.
I am not reading a lot of blogs. I have limited my current reading list to the blogs currently on my blogroll. I do regularly read these blogs, and by doing so, have begun to distinguish between the relative personalities of many. There are so many great minds in the Blogosphere. There are so many varying viewpoints. While the Ph.ds and Professors have garnered the most prestige from their blogging efforts, not all of these are the best communicators. Some of these are on my list, but they are not usually among those I most enjoy reading.
Effective written communication is an art. It is time consuming. "Write like Hemingway, not like Steinbeck," I remember teachers berating. I wanted to write like Uncle Remus. There is always, however, the perfect way to convey your message with the intent you want it to have. It seems to come so easily to some. To those like me, there are immense pauses in train of thought, as we feebly attempt to divine from among the cobwebbed archives of our stored vocabulary that perfect word to convey our intent.
I personally fail in this endeavor often. I often reread my posts, sometimes several days after publication, and see something that could be phrased somewhat better, and change it. That is me, continually striving for perfection.*
As I have said, if you read enough of a person's writing, you begin to develop a feel for who they are. The Blogosphere mirrors the realm of the human experience. There are the givers and the takers. There are the pompous and the humble. There are the agitators and the peacemakers.
No matter what your take is on any issue, I never have a quarrel with allowing you your right to speak your mind. As an attorney, the biggest part of my life is dedicated to fully understanding both sides of any issue, despite which side I choose or am bound by my professional ethics to advocate. It is not your stance on the issue, people, that makes a difference. It is the manner in which you convey the argument that supports your stance. Fanatical diatribe is useless for any purpose other than to agitate and aggravate. What a waste of beautiful words.
One thing the Internet has done, it has allowed the idiots to display their idiocy. I do not know how many times I have to repeat this phrase: Truth is relevant to perception. No one tells the truth, they only tell what they believe to be the truth after their perceptions have tempered it with the flair of their personality. The truth is seldom known by anyone.
I suppose what really plagues me about this Blogosphere is that with all the great minds out there, why do some of them not use theirs?
*I make no claim of perfection, but do believe that the continual quest for perfection is the key to a fulfilling life.
Posted by Tiger at June 12, 2003 12:47 PMHad I a dollar for every time I misinterpreted someone's post while I linked to it, I probably wouldn't be able to pay for a year's worth of hosting in advance, but I'm sure I could get through a month or two.
Fortunately, this medium is self-correcting, up to a point. (Hill's Corollary to Layne's Law: There is no ass so great that it cannot be fact-checked.)
Posted by: CGHill at June 12, 2003 08:32 PM.."the perfect way to convey your message with the intent you want it to have...there are immense pauses in train of thought, as we feebly attempt to divine from among the cobwebbed archives of our stored vocabulary that perfect word to convey.."
This is how I feel everyday. In my head, it's brilliant and one that would stand the test to some of these other great writers...for some reason, though, I just can't seem to get it out on paper. (screen) I have taken up re-reading some of my college textbooks in addition to purchasing more books about writing. I know I have it in me...it's getting it OUT that's the problem.
Posted by: serenity at June 13, 2003 08:31 AMIf I could acurately describe the tangled mass of thoughts that continually swirl through my mind all day, you would all wonder from what planet I originated.
Posted by: Tiger at June 13, 2003 02:58 PMThen does Truth exist? If it doesn't then why do so many strive to find it?
Posted by: Sean Hackbarth at June 13, 2003 07:14 PMThough highly difficult to find, truth exists. However, whether total honesty exists is questionable.
Posted by: Tiger at June 13, 2003 07:32 PM