In my first year as an I.T. professional, I took pride in being a perfectionist. I was - and in a more conciliatory way, still am - anal-retentive about grammar. Good vocabulary was something I commanded and demanded from those that wrote to me - use the perfect word, or shut up. I was a formatting freak - font sizes, margins, table widths, spreadsheet colours - everything had to meet a standard at once sober and functional. Every document of the many I wrote had footnotes, explications, counter-points, whatnot. If a point was not precisely and accurately made, I thought it better not to make it.
I would pore over the finished draft of each email, each document, each presentation and spreadsheet (you can tell I never wrote a line of code to save my life!) for several minutes; read them over twice/ thrice before sending them out. I would often re-word/ refine/ explicate something in that last minute review leading to much self-congratulation.
And of course after all this, the stuff I sent out always had glaring mistakes I would only notice the next day, week, or month. This is the best cautionary tale I can tell for the point I make below.
This was all before we truly entered the age of Facebook feeds, single paragraph blogs updated with posts every hour, Twitter feeds where 'no post over 130 characters' is supposedly a good thing(!), and 24x7 news where everyone has news and analysis, but where you have to dig through piles upon piles of absolute horseshit to get one long-term, panoramic perspective!
It is fitting that in this "fast-paced" world we are working on constantly increasing the volume and "instantaneousness" of information available for consumption. It certainly fits in with the fast food, fast car, private space, romance by email and Facebook culture we live in. It is also fitting that just as I am working on turning thirty, I should publish this post complaining not that I can't keep up with technology, but that in some instances such as the ones cited, technology and the ways in which the media - both organized and 'web 2.0' - is using it, are a complete disservice to mankind. That I'm doing it online I think shows that I am not a crusty old technophobe - that I'm doing it at all shows I'm not 'with the times'!
Folks, think about this piece of Entish wisdom spouted by Treebeard in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: "You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say."
It is perilous to constantly reduce the distance between (if not to short circuit) thought and broadcast, emotion and reaction, event and news report; it is prudent to be a little long form, a little elaborate, a little considerate, deliberate, and less prolific in what we say, and do.
I don't fear the 'oops' email where you end a friendship at 3 a.m. with an ill thought jibe; I fear that in this day and age, whether you are a private citizen or (worse) a media person, or (even worse) a public figure, once it's out there, it's out there. And if it is ill-thought out, it will do damage. So my friends:
Fear the tweet, heed the Ent! Out!
