Words on a Screen

Listening

Words are not my favorite way to communicate. They so often become the source of misunderstanding. A touch, a glance, a profound silence can possess a power that words lack. One thing about speaking with words is that it robs us of the opportunity to listen. I dearly love to listen. Well—to certain people. (No one is obliged to suffer fools gladly, or indefinitely.)

When we listen with genuine curiosity—not to judge or direct, but to truly learn—we open the door to conversations that are richer, more meaningful, and far less prone to misunderstanding.

Letting someone’s words into your consciousness is an act of hospitality. It means allowing their experience to leave a mark on the world you inhabit.

Meaningful exchange depends on trust. The stories we share with each other are sometimes more than just information; they reveal glimpses of deeper truths, tracing the contours of our inner selves— beyond the telling. That kind of sharing must be earned through presence, discretion, and care. Listening well makes us worthy of that kind of vulnerability.

Sometimes, the urgency we feel to speak stems more from our need to be heard than the other person’s readiness to listen. There’s wisdom in knowing when to hold back—not out of avoidance, but out of respect for the space someone else might need. Or simply to ensure that pride, fear, or people-pleasing aren’t the true motivations behind our words.

And sometimes, if we wait too long, the distance grows too wide. After ages of being unseen, a person might lose the will to speak at all. Which is why the kind of listening that invites someone to be known isn’t just a kindness—it’s a necessity.

Writing

At times, assembling words on paper, or typing them onto a screen, feels obscenely self-indulgent. I recently re-read Joan Didion’s essay On Keeping a Notebook, first published in 1966. In it, she writes:

“The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. …Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontented children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.”

There is value in recording moments. We write to understand our experiences, to share them, or to preserve a version of ourselves in memory. For most of my life, the goal of my scattered musings—whether erratic ramblings or “graceful pensées”—has simply been to understand and remember what it is to be me.

“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.”

These reflections have always been private. Modesty, to me, isn’t secrecy or withdrawal, but discernment: knowing what to share, and with whom. It is both consensual and contextual. But perhaps living a life in pursuit of truth and beauty can require a different take on modesty—one that includes the courage to be seen, and knows that to share one’s self is part of the practice of love.

Words are a beautiful medium. In choosing them carefully, like threading beads on a string, we don’t just experience the words, we experience the life around them. It is like painting pictures in another person’s mind. They are tendrils of empathy that reach out to encounter the tendrils of another.

The idea that someone might be interested in this particular string of beads still baffles me. Time and attention are precious. Yet in this season where meaningful connection with loved ones can feel elusive, there are times when words are all we have.

I wonder, as Didion once did, about my sins of commission, or omission — “the gifts irrevocably wasted by sloth or cowardice or carelessness.” Perhaps it is a responsibility to enjoy this privilege.