Wall Scrawlers

Katie left a comment on the Imagination is Funny piece.  She said, "Everything everyone is thinking is streaming real-time on Facebook. There's nothing left to jot in notebooks at diners."   Yes, I suppose that's true.  Let's pick this modern reality apart a little.  


My first problem with this is that everything that everyone is thinking is not that interesting.  The idea behind the phrase, "a penny for your thoughts," is that we aren't actually being subjected to all of your thoughts.  There's still a bit of mystery about you.  If you want to publish every detail of your life, go ahead.  It may be very therapeutic.  But it will probably also be monstrously boring.  Even your closest friends will be skimming it, hoping beyond hope, to come to a punch line.  

The advantages of being a wall scrawler are that you must look at the space of your canvas and plan accordingly.  You have to know what you want to say going in, as it is mostly illegal to write on walls, and therefore you have to act before you have time to get caught.  

When I see something written on a wall I pay attention.  You know, the whole, "the writing was on the wall," thing.  Someone, whom I most likely don't know, was standing right here and felt inclined to leave a message to whoever else might pass this way.  It's kind of a time traveling thingee.  Put an idea out that is static in space and then see what happens.  Except, of course, that you don't see what happens because you have already moved on in time and you don't know what impact you idea will have on others.  Exciting, isn't it?  

Physically writing something on something gives you an entirely different kind of readership.  Let's say that I write something on a wall in the bathroom at the pier (I didn't do this, so don't send the graffiti police after me... at least not just yet) about organization of revolutions.  Now people who don't even have computers can think about what I said.  Homeless people can think about it.  Unemployed people who decided to spend the day fishing can see it.  People who are crazily addicted to Facebook, but not on my friends list (mostly because I don't Facebook), can see it.  The people who are actually in some kind of proximity to me, but do not know me or my ideas, can be impacted by my ideas.  

When I see something written in a public space (like a notebook in a cafe) I am touched by ideas that come from people with whom I share some physical proximity, and who have ideas that I didn't know to seek out.  In a very real way the Sharpie is mightier than the Tweet.