The challenge of the modern thinker is not what to say, but where to say it. We have at our disposal in infinite number of digital outlets; a rampantly increasing number of human hearers; every possible medium DIY.
We can cherry-pick the audience; cherry-pick our degree of control over the audience; target our ideas to 358 carefully selected individuals dispersed around the globe, or shout across the grocery store at the top of our lungs; nail a poster on a telephone pole or hide out on some exclusive online porch.
We can insist on sense, or on nonsense; soothe or anger, or ignore; we can pretend any part of the world doesn’t exist, with our messages, and who is to say that it does? Someone else.
Communication and sorting are not the same thing, but so much of communication is sorting that it is hard to tell the difference. Wellsprings we are, unflinchingly beautiful; our ideas rise up like oil through a many-armed golden lamp. Some evaporate, unnoticed; others we watch burn; some of these we call to someone’s attention. Our primary mechanism for achieving any goal is choosing which rivulet to ignite–the wellspring being unquestionable, constant–which flame to shield with our hand, or hands; and which eyes, with what knowledge behind them, to send it flickering in.
*I apologize for both the word “rivulet” and the word “ignite,” and apologize again for using them so close together.