Chatter versus Matter.
The democratization of publishing is a gift not without cost. Everybody’s talking online (including yours truly), dialoguing (don’t you hate that verb?), recording podcasts, replying to replies. Snarks go viral, snagging attention. Peevishly I unsubscribe to worthy voices because I’m short on time and calm. Others, I’m sure, do the same with my spill. Some Substackers, I notice, subscribe to me and a hundred other blatherers: when do they find time to eat or sleep!
That so many can be heard so cheaply stimulates thought and defends against tyranny. My life would be incalculably less joyous if I had to depend on tone-deaf publishers to assemble readers. Without you guys, my days would be gray.
But, oh, the superabundance! How to cope! If good folks read me, am I not bound by the law of hospitality to read them? Isn’t my neglect an insult?
This anxiety is new. Publishing used to be a one-way street. When Hemingway published a novel, no one expected him to read theirs or even answer fan mail. The ordeal of publishing muted most aspirants.
Now publishing’s as easy as jogging (easier, in my case). And for every voice, there’s a listener, at least a few. Public attention is scattered into innumerable receptacles: no two readers read the same mix, which inhibits discussion. How often each week I’m asked whether I’ve read this or that. No, I shrug sheepishly, haven’t the time, sorry.
The cure here is painful, as it is for society or dieting: less is more. Limit your intake – of voices, friends, calories – to maintain your health. Our fervent consumer economy overproduces everything except peace and quiet. Slam the door! No, don’t slam it, shut it gently but ruefully.
Such restraint is unpleasant, often unfair, unkind. It demands discipline, which I lack. I sneak snacks, then bludgeon myself with obloquy, which doesn’t help either. These days I’m interacting with hundreds of new readers a day, hurray – but is that hour or two of greeting a good use of my mind? Distraction shatters thought into shards; I must concentrate! But I don’t want to be lonely in my cubicle, I want to play!
These missives help me wrest my restive brain into a sort of order. Yes, they’re slight, mere crackers, but if I make enough, mightn’t I collect a box of crackers? Composing composes me – for its duration. My perspective assumes for an instant a shapely pattern, like a kaleidoscope’s.
During my toddlerdom, there was a musical I never saw but its title sticks: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off. That’s me. I seek the seclusion of a Santayana in his lonely aerie and the jollity of my mates in the pub. Oh to be a part – and apart! Chatter – and Matter – both! So wherever I find myself I’m antsy to be elsewhere.
History may recall our epoch (if History itself survives) as stupefied by superfluity: we were too busy skimming to think. The constant contest for our attention made us captious, trivial, cranky. We were always missing out. I kick myself for all the exhibitions, plays, concerts I haven’t attended. That Caravaggio show in Rome – be still, my heart!
To preserve sanity, we must practice stillness, whisk away the nonsense and insist on significance and silence, stand sturdy guardian of our core; read one paragraph deeply not fifty speedily; insist, don’t simply exist. Love takes time – to seed and sprout – and love is our only good reason to be.