Post Essayist
You must respect the reader’s time.
Keep your points streamlined and short.
Add necessary research and backlinks.
Don’t be stupid. Delete every unnecessary word.
Reference older works when possible, especially if inspired.
Convey what you want to say. Nothing more.
I imagine the above are the rough rules on what it means to write an essay. You’re entirely welcome to add any missing. Whatever you add it’s likely I trespass its sanctions too.
I believe we have moved into an age where communication is no longer possible. If you study your own habits, half of them seemed formed and infused in you. Of the other half, well, that requires power networks you and I could only dream of harnessing.
When I talk to my alcoholic friends, I know there is nothing I can say nor stand against in the stream of culture suggesting another pint. And while we’re passing our Golden Arches, tempted in our snacks or Starbursts, I know there is nothing I can say from this predetermined glut, the smoke break, the SSRIs making the city bearable.
It’s impossible to respect a reader’s time if there is no objective. When communication is no longer possible there’s no shared vanishing point. These are the words of a machine ordained and sentenced: everything written is automatic, and I can’t bother to defend it. Drains out the same as mucus, and you can figure out where your perspective fits in it.
No salient points to make. And I sure as hell don’t have anything too indulgent to say, other than the form itself. Well, maybe a few: that I want to break every single shackle which supposes a proper entry. If I can’t communicate anymore, and we’ll only be washed over by those with massive amounts of power, of wit, silent immortal monarchs lurking, well, then I’ll just try something different.
There are thousands of Good Essays with the proper form and meat in them too. Well researched, certain display of intellectual rigor, absolutely. They did some reading. It’s all there, and I can’t stop hearing the emergency alarms in the distance.
Our machine has been broken for awhile now. I’m not sure how much longer my heart will pump. And though I know where I need to go, and what bank accounts to rise, and what friends to impress, or what status badges to get a mate, whatever else, I do not know why. The “why” is buried under, or at least partly motivated by the typical markers: acceptance, validation, control or a feeling of control over one’s destiny.
The gale winds flailed the Indian Ocean, traced toward the Antarctic tundra, in that glacial stillness, where your skin seems see-through. The gears start to harden.
Whatever makes someone push forward has been forgotten. No combination of thoughts will fix it.
In a world of broken communication, what’s left is demonstration.
Show this place without words. Brightly colored masks. I want you to hear your heartbeat, and feel everything without running away from it, without masquerading it all with a most convincing psychological reflection and a hearken to some novel of the day to recede further.
Upon a Montanan peak you will hear the symphony we’ve left deafened.