Blogs and hieroglyphs
May 5, 2012
Webs, blogs, twitter, tweets – I stare glumly at my publishers’ e-mail suggesting that I develop a web-presence.
Naturally, I have, on occasion, allowed myself to daydream about getting published. In those moments, I’d envisioned myself reading in libraries and classrooms or signing in books stores, not navigating the phenomena of social media.
Disconsolate, I turn on the television and flip through the channels in an attempt to distract and procrastinate. Indeed, I hadn’t been this eager to procrastinate since political science when I’d cleaned the oven. In fact, cleanliness was an unusually high priority during my poli-sci semester.
I glance into our kitchen and decide to stick with the T.V. The show is all about Egyptian hieroglyphics. Apparently, they used small flat rocks as a form of Egyptian post-its. Who knew?
I turn off the T.V. and ascend the stairs to my 14 year-olds’ room. Perhaps she will have insight on social media and developing my web-presence.
As I enter her room, she looks up with surprising enthusiasm. “Guess what?” she says. “I’m skyping. This is neat. I’ve turned off the visual because my hair isn’t good. But my friend is talking to me through my computer.”
To demonstrate this point, a cracking boy’s voice emerges from her laptop and enters the room.
“And how is that different from a phone?” that tiny voice which must never be uttered within-teenage ear shot mutters in my head.
I squash it.
But, as I leave her to her skyping, I feel a buoyancy of spirit and lightness of heart. There are only so many ways for humans to communicate. We can dress it up as ‘twitters and tweets’. We can contract written words as BFF, LOL or scratch hieroglyphs into stone but writing is writing.
I can do the written word.
Besides we all shy away from change – I can imagine an Egyptian ancient muttering about the transience of papyrus. “Flimsy stuff,” he might say. “Nothing like a good old fashioned chunk of rock for permanence.”
And maybe, after all, he found that papyrus wasn’t all bad. “Soaks up the ink better,” he might add or “doesn’t clunk in my pockets.”
Did Egyptians have pockets?
And maybe he found, as I have done, that change is not change at all, but merely the dressing up of an old friend.
Webs, blogs, twitter, tweets – I stare glumly at my publishers’ e-mail suggesting that I develop a web-presence.
Naturally, I have, on occasion, allowed myself to daydream about getting published. In those moments, I’d envisioned myself reading in libraries and classrooms or signing in books stores, not navigating the phenomena of social media.
Disconsolate, I turn on the television and flip through the channels in an attempt to distract and procrastinate. Indeed, I hadn’t been this eager to procrastinate since political science when I’d cleaned the oven. In fact, cleanliness was an unusually high priority during my poli-sci semester.
I glance into our kitchen and decide to stick with the T.V. The show is all about Egyptian hieroglyphics. Apparently, they used small flat rocks as a form of Egyptian post-its. Who knew?
I turn off the T.V. and ascend the stairs to my 14 year-olds’ room. Perhaps she will have insight on social media and developing my web-presence.
As I enter her room, she looks up with surprising enthusiasm. “Guess what?” she says. “I’m skyping. This is neat. I’ve turned off the visual because my hair isn’t good. But my friend is talking to me through my computer.”
To demonstrate this point, a cracking boy’s voice emerges from her laptop and enters the room.
“And how is that different from a phone?” that tiny voice which must never be uttered within-teenage ear shot mutters in my head.
I squash it.
But, as I leave her to her skyping, I feel a buoyancy of spirit and lightness of heart. There are only so many ways for humans to communicate. We can dress it up as ‘twitters and tweets’. We can contract written words as BFF, LOL or scratch hieroglyphs into stone but writing is writing.
I can do the written word.
Besides we all shy away from change – I can imagine an Egyptian ancient muttering about the transience of papyrus. “Flimsy stuff,” he might say. “Nothing like a good old fashioned chunk of rock for permanence.”
And maybe, after all, he found that papyrus wasn’t all bad. “Soaks up the ink better,” he might add or “doesn’t clunk in my pockets.”
Did Egyptians have pockets?
And maybe he found, as I have done, that change is not change at all, but merely the dressing up of an old friend.
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