Today, you will be able to figure out the 'lead time' on the h2g2 Post. I usually write about three weeks ahead. Today is the day after the US presidential election, and I have Zero Motivation.

I don't want to. . .

• Write anything: not a letter, not an email, not a Post-It note.
• Answer the phone.
• Turn on the TV or watch Youtube.
• Speak to anyone in this country, ever again.

It isn't just that nobody I voted for won in the election. I'm used to that, and frankly, I'd be surprised if more than one or two candidates I backed were successful. I don't mind the fact that I'm a minority of one. Seriously.

But this time, I felt like it mattered. And I am so disgusted by the outcome, and so sure that the contemptuous behaviour of the voters in this country will lead to disaster, that, as my grandfather might have said, 'I've just plumb give up.'

What's the point? Why write, if what you write persuades no one? If nothing you can say succeeds in shedding light in our shared darkness, lets us peer ahead a few feet into the gloom, points us in the direction of some discovered truth? Pah, let them all go stumbling down the rabbit hole. See if I care.

I wonder if anyone else ever felt like this?

I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will
have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active – not more happy – nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary – and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain – that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future – that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves – nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual in man the mass.

Edgar Allan Poe, 2 July, 1844.

Poe's ideas make me stop and think. He's right, of course, in opposing the relentless idea of his day that people were just getting better and better, every day, in every way. . . bosh. And it's as true today as it was in 1844. We think people will learn more, be better, love their neighbour as themselves, if we just educate them better.

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time, and annoys the pig.

Piece of folk wisdom variously attributed to authors from Mark Twain to Robert Heinlein

Education is not the answer. Heart-change is, of course. One thing the history of human democracy has taught me is that there is a hard core of humanity that is not willing to change its collective heart.

But guess what? There's another part of humanity that is willing to change. Or at least, to awaken the light within. They may never be a majority. But they're the ones who count.

And guess what else? No matter how dark the view from the window gets, people of good will – Gottfried von Strassburg called them the 'noble hearts' – will still recognise the truth in each others' words. So who cares if nobody else is listening?

And yeah, Edgar, I think you're right: humans haven't changed in 6000 years, or even 35,000. But there's an upside to that. We can write our hearts out, knowing that, as long as they can decipher the language, the good-hearted kids of the future will be able to read, understand, and be inspired by the words of the past. They might just find that what we say speaks to their condition. We might be leaving messages in bottles, but as long as there's an ocean, the message will get carried along.

So I guess I'll keep writing, even if nobody appears to be paying attention. See you next week.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

28.11.16 Front Page

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