—
—
I’ve been thinking about words lately
Our relationship with them
How it’s changed
I miss the way we once used words
When there was a responsibility to choose one’s words carefully
Spoken or written
Instead of franchising our sentences across a digital echo chamber
I remember when what we said had lasting consequence
Do you?
It wasn’t that long ago
Not as time goes
I miss the way words mattered
And carried weight
When the meaning of something actually meant something
And we as humans were accountable for the distribution and comprehension of our language
When hyperbole was infrequent
And anybody understood what literally actually meant
I miss new words
Not invented words mind you
Those pop culture portmanteaus that McMansionize our lexicons and turn our vocabularies into carousels of temporary horses
New words that were already old the day we met them
New to us
Cornerstones and classics
That described with incredible precision
People
Places
Things
And emotions
Words that perfectly captured the zeitgeist
Before we knew what a zeitgeist was
And long before the zeitgeist became inextricably obsessed with the ephemeral
I miss the hesitation that came with meeting these new words
Hearing them in conversation from a well read adult or an overeducated friend
And the trepidation in my first use of them
I miss when being wrong was an opportunity instead of an obstacle
When people corrected themselves instead of plowing through their own doubt with gas powered fervor
I miss forethought and delivery
Specificity and the understated
I miss anything but speed and volume
The ubiquity of which have become inescapable
I miss the days when whatever and like where the Bonnie and Clyde of our language
Most wanted numbers 1 and 2
Oral STDs that seemed to proliferate amongst the mouths of the young
The worst we could expect
I miss the pauses in the middle of statements
The jagged edges and sharp cliffs that endangered sentences and kept us rapt with attention.
We have sanded those edges and bridged those cliffs with inaccurate and common methods
Collectively refusing to publicly acknowledge that we haven’t really arrived at our intended destination at all
Like Columbus
I miss relevance
and substance
And the simple fact that things usually aren’t black and white because… well it just depends
When we talked about nightmares in terms of dreams that woke up from our sleep in fear
Not the day to day of our banal and overstated daily frustrations
When not knowing was OK
As was admitting it
And we were allowed to perform silent post mortems
On our own mistakes
Not blaming
Everything and everybody…
Not everyday anyway
When we were amazed in the way that kept our mouths open
Using that word to describe experiences we actually gazed at in wonder
Not a fucking pumpkin spiced latte
I miss the days when we proclaimed our love for fewer things
And more people
Before the ratio skewed to the inanimate
I miss the days before hashtags
When a shared language signified a mutual understanding
Not a projected participation
When we worried more about the caliber of what we said than who had heard it
I miss accountability
God I miss accountability
When repeated false statements resulted in the volume on your personal PA system being turned down
Not up
When apologies weren’t written with our thumbs
When they came at a cost instead of a tap
I miss consideration both before we spoke and after we heard
I miss patiently percolating one’s beliefs
Pouring them out slowly
Into specific and desired mugs
Not the 9 second cold brew we throw upon walls like graffiti
I miss the unparalleled superiority of quiet facts to thunderous opinions
When those who spoke but said nothing were ignored, not celebrated
When it was more important to be something than say something
When soapboxes were looked at with curiosity instead of entitlement…
But I might be kidding myself that such a time ever existed
I miss when objectivity wasn’t a matter of opinion
But a matter of fact
And when adjectives described a part of someone, not their whole
I miss not knowing what others thought
I fear our words mean nothing now
And nothing words mean everything
We no longer agonize over what we should say
Or allow ourselves time
To prepare for the possible resonance of our contribution
I miss the days when our words mattered
Our relationship with them
Our collective evolution and mutual propulsion
Towards eloquence
And a spoken elegance
That I fear
We no longer have the words for
—
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