Words Aren't Enough

This past week we looked at letters from John and Abigail Adams and while trying to analyze the underlying tone of the letters, there was some dispute. Some people interpreted the relationship of John and Abigail one way while others disagreed. After hearing this, I couldn’t help but think about how limited writing is in terms of communication. Today, millions of people use texting and emails to reach out and send messages. Although this form of communication may be convenient and comfortable, it doesn’t always fully satisfy the conveyance of the information that needs to be delivered.

In Abigail’s letter, she first starts out by saying “I wish you would ever write me a Letter half as long as I write you” and to this John replies with “You justly complain of my short Letters”. Some could say “Oh, this sounds like a lighthearted joke” while others could think Wait, I feel like there’s some hostility in this. I guess you could try and decipher what type of relationship they have and the level of intimacy they share, but to be honest, we just don’t know. I understand that people have a purpose when they write and they try to portray their intentions as much as they can, but even with that we can't be certain.

Personally, I sometimes find that I get misunderstood when trying to say something over text, or even when writing an essay, sometimes it’s hard to find the right combination of words to effectively demonstrate my argument. In these situations I find it so frustrating because I want to be able to point at something and say that it should be “blamed”, but I can’t. It’s just the fact that words limit human expression.

This week's song:

Jeremy Zucker - comethru // https://youtu.be/jO2viLEW-1A





This song is about trying to catch another person's attention and get him/her to come through. Similarly, people write hoping that their intended audience will understand the complete message and come through. comethru is one of my favorites so I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think :)