Writing Again?
April 05, 2026
A considerable period has elapsed since I last wrote anything for public consumption. After the termination of such a lapse, it is my custom to sound a dirge or lament and perhaps profess that this time will be different.
But this gap of many years bears some examination, so we shall not allow it to be interrupted without due reflection.
The years have marched by at quite a pace; the last time I wrote on the Internet (even un-seriously) was nearly two decades ago now. The world, alas, has changed, and I fear this accounts for the length of the interval.
One always writes for the imagined audience; even the future self, as audience, is an imaginary construct. So who, then, is this “we” that I have suggested?
I first wrote in a blessed era of the Internet, the fresh period before 2008, when Facebook and Twitter began the systematic ruin of discourse. In this era, there was no (or certainly, less) algorithmic direction of attention based on the invidious motives of capitalists; we all erected our own rickety vessels and sailed the Internet in pursuit of the free commerce of ideas. People spoke from the pure joy of being read by their peers; we found and saw each other. There was no dichotomy between the “influencer” and the “influenced”, only a collegiate dialog.
But to my bitter disappointment, humanity collectively abandoned this free discourse in favor of the lazy, click-driven, rage-baiting world of “social media”, and I receded.
I am tired of an Internet that endlessly chews over the same dumb thoughts handed down to us by our enemies, that seems to not even miss the opportunity for more patient, thoughtful, and productive writing, which doesn’t merely ask the same pointless questions in the same repetitive, pontificating diatribes that produce no outcomes. I want change, effort, and deep thoughts not captured by warmongers and power-brokers.
The things - the conversations - I want no longer seem available. A suffocating morass of “commentary” is there in its place, and even more of purely venal huckstering. I tire of attempting to create such a thing against a visible tide.
And yet, in recession, I tire more, because my thoughts echo uselessly against the sides of my own head seeking escape, but instead decaying into a few sharp remnants, formed by the coincidence and endless repetition to myself of the same cant.
These thoughts must be let out, at least so that they can better take their natural shape in real words. And though I have no desire to even picture that there is a “you” out there that I care to address, still the stamp of publication is how I must hold myself to account. Let there be a record, that this is not just what I have thought, but also said.
Is it possible, then, to write into a void, hopeless of being read? Let’s find out.
-- graft