Failure to Communicate

We have lost the ability to speak to each other in words that others can hear.

Our debates have become Internet memes, background pictures with clever words meant to shame or embarrass our opponents without any thought beyond that of gaining the intellectual upper hand.

Our discussions have become short sentences - tweets or snapchats or short phrases on Facebook delivered without contact or context, then responded to in anger or righteous superiority of our position.

We have lost the ability to speak.  We have lost the ability to be kind.

Oh, we say that we are interested in communication.  We spend our days on our phones and computers, chatting and texting one another.  Our lives have become full of words - and yet empty of of communication.

We are rapidly losing that most basic of interactions that are supposed to differentiate us from all other species, the ability to communicate.

I spend my days wrapped in sadness, slowly withdrawing more and more from the communication and technological mediums available to me as all I see and read and hear is anger and fear and hatred - so little kindness, so little consideration of others and how our words impact them.

I weep for the future - not so much that I fear something particular happening, but rather that no matter what will happen, we will have lost our ability to communicate about it.