Rambling on the use of words

Ah, just one more while I am on a roll with Alain de Botton's tweets:

A measure of how seldom we are able to say what we feel to people is how many writers there are in the world.

From here.

So true - though perhaps he is referring to the fact that people go and write books out of all the things left unsaid, rather than actually write them to the person they meant to hear them. One of the useful things I learnt from good ole Myers-Briggs is that those of my temperament type do like to write things (but I do write them directly to people) and rely on written word more than spoken in many cases. But I've also learnt that a lot of other people don't like to write things and don't like you to write things to them. Some see writing as an inferior form of communication - and while I acknowledge the limits of writing, I don't actually think that's completely true, though good ole Derrida might say there is greater potential for loss of meaning in writing - others just plain don't like it. And so I've also learnt that writing to those people (ie most other people who aren't INFJ) is only of limited usefulness and benefit, because they won't respond in writing (or will do so under duress), and may not respond in person either, and you then just create your own angst of unknowing. Then occasionally you light on someone who also loves to write, and have an intense written conversation that can get somewhat out of touch with reality.

It's true that in times past I've turned to writing only after spoken attempts failed, but I think that in the end I need to ditch written forms in most cases and speak. Interesting that in one INFJ analysis it says we favour writing because it has a structure (a little weird to me though, because I am not usually thinking "structure"), and recently I wanted to say something of some import to someone and had notes in my bag ready (incase I forgot my flow in the conversation), we just didn't ever get to that conversation. That brings me to the other problem in that sometimes the opportunity to speak face to face is harder to find than to write also. But, the new me is going to try to only to say important things, or things of which it's important to me to receive a response, face to face, even if it means I go along with notes. The end.