I wrote a brilliant, insightful, incisive post today for this global communications colossus. I typed it up, edited it, made sure all the links were in good working order, sweated over a brief, splendid headline…, and then parked it in the Drafts folder, where it’ll remain forever (or at least until whatever extinction event wipes out any trace of our civilization).
That folder, WordPress tells me, now is crammed with 65 such lovingly-composed, to-date unread by the masses screeds, pleadings, explications, and manifestos. At an average of 1000 per, that’s about 65,000 words-worth of Big Mike-ness, a decent-sized book. I went into every single one believing with all my heart that this one, this post, is gonna change the world. Or at least make someone chuckle. Or just go Hmm.
I’m not even counting all the posts, completed or not, that I trashed because 1) they stunk or 2) I didn’t care as much about the topic as I originally thought I did. That’s a pretty deep pile of rhetoric (a euphemism, for all you creative writing students).
I started this Pencil thing, La Cosa Mia, to hone my craft and, to borrow a line from Lenny Bruce, scream out loud, Hey Ma! Look at me!
So even though you’ve been denied that plus-65,000-word slab of my perspicacity and precious prose, this Pencil thing is still working for me. And I suppose this hoarding of my clever literary skill is analogous the pianist playing Sicilienne (Opus 78, Gabriel Fauré) at home, alone, the sound waves radiating out, unheard by other human ears, and ultimately disappearing into the universe. She — and I — just have to do what we do, regardless of whether you know it or not.
There are as many reasons to put something out in the world as there are not to. The reason I didn’t publish today’s post is the same reason that pianist doesn’t shout out her front door, Hey neighbors, I’m gonna play Sicilienne, C’mon over!
I did it and that’s enough for now.
Aw, what the hell, let’s just listen to Malika Baimagambetova playing Sicilienne: