Silent Letters
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” Orwell famously observed.
Consider the observer effect, the mysterious cause of the collapse of light waves into particles. We could just as well call it the observed-observer effect, because the collapsed light wave is equally “the observer,” perceiving change in its environment and responding with an “effect.” Our way with words can be simplifying and self-referential, reinforcing unexamined assumptions and putting the rest of the universe in the dark. Poetic expression aside, we do this all the time but it can be hard to see until someone points it out.
I’m interested in words and what they can point to, and I’m equally interested in what they obscure. I dismantle unexamined assumptions. I look at the ways I am blind in order to see what might be found.
I sometimes wonder if I plagiarize all the time. My mind is like a compost pile. When I compile a thought I’m pulling on thoughts other people have shared, sometimes across centuries, so when I haul them out of the muck they’re often entwined and twisted beyond coherent attribution. The giants stood on the shoulders of giants too didn’t they? It’s giants all the way down.
Credentials, Accolades, Achievements and Awards
I published a poem once, (one of a collection of two, curiously both about time as it happens) in the most mainstream publication you ever heard of. I have the distinct and dubious honour of winning a hundred-year-old bad poetry contest.
Early on I was a distracted Arts graduate from a school you never heard of. Later I took Engineering and became even more distracted. Soon after I was a zombified laptop drone, a dissociated silent partner in workplace cognitive dissonance, grinding out low paying, mind numbing jobs that only ever left the world worse than how I found it.
I have lots to say about many things.
Why Subscribe?
I’ll have to let the work speak for itself. If each newsletter makes you go “Hmmm, I never thought of it like that,” and (aspirationally) “Damn I love reading this newsletter, even though it challenges my preconceptions,” then I will achieve my objective. To begin I intend to publish two to four times per month, probably closer to two at the beginning as I figure things out.
Why become a paid subscriber? For the time being the subs are the same, but know that you have my heartfelt appreciation. And if you can’t afford it, no problem I understand. I’m in a similar position. You who can and do take a paid subscription, thank you again from my heart, you keep this going for everyone.
Jeff Verge – Silent Letters
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