thoughts on the medium and voices.

I'm watching an interesting thought thread unwind in crschmidt's journal, that started with him saying he won't listen to the phone posts, and then laying out the reasons why. Although he seems to have changed his mind, or at least decided to concede by molding technology to eliminate his most pressing objections... I agree with him.

I don't listen to audblog posts. I've done so for exactly two people thus far, and in those cases it was because I already had an idea in my head of what their voices sounded like, and was curious as to whether I was right. (I wasn't.) What I found, that should not have shocked me, but did, was that their speech did not live up to the rhythms and warm flow of their writing. They hemmed and hawed, paused painfully, stumbled on -- it was beautiful, in its own right, and very human, but it brought me close to tears, to hear such confident, skilled communicators humbled and hobbled by the limitations of their voices, and, to a greater extent, their sense of audience.

When I write, I write for myself. I may direct it to you, I may even address you, but even when I have one of you in mind -- and I often do; I like holding an image of one of you in mind and pretending I am writing just to reach you -- I know that I am my own intended audience and critic, and I often deliberately efface any betraying evidence that I directed a post to anyone in particular. The trick serves well for e-mail posts -- they are letters sent to myself, reaching you along the way.

The thing about audio posts is that, without an intended personal audience, voices tend to fall flat, to fail to inflect words, to fail at expression. And it is too easy, sometimes, to speak. The act of typing these posts usually demands time and effort -- expenditures that make me less willing to waste them on the truly trivial. Writing demands forethought and at least an attempt at laying out my viewpoint in a clear and ordered fashion. The art and immediacy of speech allows for rambling, jumping from one thought to another, meandering through a thicket of barely-related ideas. That's beautiful when a listener is in a position to interrupt, slow the speaker down, or ask for clarification. It is not, however, the best format for a journal if you are expecting participation and feedback.

I'm certainly not saying "phone posts evil!" But I will not likely be doing any myself, and I may not be patient or curious enough to listen to yours.