Rights to Write

In ancient times, writers were revered as great creators, philosophers, and the very constitution of society. Figures like Aristotle, Plato, and Homer weren't merely celebrated—they were glorified. People kissed their feet. Probably. They shaped civilizations through the power of the written word. Also through slavery and questionable hygiene, but let's focus on the writing.

For a long time, art and literary works were regarded as unique creations of singular genius. People actually took literature seriously. Imagine that. Writers like Shakespeare, Milton, Hardy, Wordsworth, Keats, Dickens, and the Brontë sisters embedded deep meaning into their dramas, novels, and poetry. Their works dominated society and guided moral and intellectual life. People argued about Hamlet's sanity, not about who had more facrbook followers.

But we now live in a different era—the postmodern age. Also known as the "look-at-me" age. Today, every Tom, Dick, and Harry—or every Sonam, Tashi, and Pema—calls themselves a writer. You farted into a notes app? Congratulations, you're an author. With the rise of computers, mass media, and rapid technological advancement, television and digital screens have come to dominate society like a rash on a baby's bottom. People no longer believe that a work of art or literature carries a single, fixed meaning. Instead, they prefer to derive their own subjective interpretations. It is an age where everybody writes, but nobody truly reads.

Interactive media and the internet have democratized knowledge—yes—but also diluted it. Like cheap whiskey. Copying and preserving art through digital means has made the artist less of an authority and more of a ghost. A fart in the wind. The easier it becomes to share, the harder it becomes to be valued.

The reading habit is dying, suffocated by modern amenities. Smothered by movies, strangled by Facebook , choked by YouTube shorts. It seems there is no future for the writer. Our youth are carried away by the mouse, robotics, trends, phoning phones, dinky-hinky and kinky-pinky lives, nets and notifications—anything but an "inky-bingo" life of pen and paper. They'd rather watch a cat fall off a table than read a single page of Tolstoy. Meanwhile, adults are occupied with minting monies, gambling and wagering, whoring for pourboire (that's tips or bribes, for the uninitiated). Everyone's busy bending over for a quick buck. In such an environment, where is the scope for a writer to be appreciated? Nowhere. Not even in the toilet.

I wish—and I say this selflessly, though my ego is screaming—that many writers would write, many promoters would promote, and many readers would read. I wish for the world to be conquered by words once again. I wish for people to put down their phones and pick up a good book. But the painful truth is that readers have now conquered words. Words no longer carry meaning for them. Words are just sounds. And if words lose their meaning, then writers, inevitably, have a bleak future. A future of shouting into the void while the void scrolls past. A future of writing beautiful sentences that nobody will finish. A future of being that sad uncle in the corner with a pen and no audience.

So here we are. Writing. For ourselves. For the ghost of Homer. And maybe—just maybe—for one or two souls who still read past the first paragraph.

The Death of the Writer and the Death of the Reader