Echo Chambers
(Mis)communication
I was speaking with myself (which is different from speaking to oneself) again in the shallows of boiled waters. Distilled to flatness. Speaking then answering, waiting for the voice to respond what I didn’t know. Answers, coming to me in hunks of coagulant, to block arteries and minds. I wondered if I had done this before or if I was alone. As a prisoner in isolation I reminded myself I was not alone. Appearances could be deceiving. My cell, my thoughts, my voice. My echo chamber.
She said: “I realized I’m broke off from people. Most of us, I would say, are talking into the endless din of social media. We aren’t reaching people very often and when we do it’s rarely long enough to forge an experience.”
“People sounding out the syllables of their own thoughts. Talking in circles around self-adoration.”
“Yes. Or. We really don’t know how to communicate. We know how to grunt sound, put words places, but that’s not communicating.” She paused for a moment. Bounced her ink pen in a see-saw motion atop her thigh. “You know what it is?”
“More than words — ”
“More than intelligibility.”
“There’s something else.”
“What we’re experiencing, I think, is we’re mostly talking to ourselves. With a bit of illusion over top…
