Language arose as a crucial ‘technology’ in the milieu of the social. To connect with an Other requires a protocol—a common expressive pathway shared by the Self and the Other—in dialogue. This is an old idea.
The sharing and its deep compulsion arises in the context of momentary, memorable, and activated Life combined with the desire to communicate. (Noting the strange paradigm that ‘not communicating’ or silence is also communication in that social context.) The greater the desire to ‘connect,’ the more adaptable and flexible the two must be in their attempts to understand one another.
This is where the question of wider social viability enters the process. The more idiosyncratic ones choice of communications protocol (language usage or even which language itself) the smaller the potential receiver-base.
For example—formulaic as a genre—romance novels strike me as suffering from a simplistic extreme within such a paradigm. From the limited sampling that I’ve done, the contained language (English) and its usage is banal and bland: mealy-mouthed. As is the ultimate canned banality of the overarching ‘message’ that is being communicated: it’s more than enough to read the liner notes, look at the cover, or note where the book is shelved in the bookstore or library. Predictability allows for wider dissemination, a wider audience, and, thus, in a capitalist system, a better cash flow.
Some of the most striking texts I’ve encountered are the most complex, non-standard, idiosyncratic, dated—and yet are the most profound for their internal reach. Listening to the Other, receiving such texts requires an empathy for and open-ness to the Other that is rarely easy. Within a hunger for knowledge, enlightenment, or basic insight, these texts are sought out in the stead of couldn’t-put-it-down casual time-filling, time-killing reading.
It’s all about numbers. You may have a secret protocol that you use with only one Other in the cosmos: wonderful, as the carrier of idiosyncratic energies between the Self and the Other, it likely allows for exchanges incomprehensible and unreachable to any third-party.
This text has a meta-message: a dearth of readers indicates that it is unreadable: dour, boring, poorly structured, usage too garbled, or merely not relevant. Reaching relevancy through other means (protocols)—sonic or visual—to bridge the unbridgeable gap between the Self and the Other—also remains a challenge. Disciplined understanding and the application of more widely used protocols would be the growth-oriented marketing strategy in the attention economy. So would identifying and filling a particular need of the Other. Those needs are apparently filled by the oligarchs of the current social milieu. Besides, I can’t manage the level of discipline when faced by the fact that the species may not exist in another 2000 years. Transcribing what needs to appear on the screen in the moment is the most I can do in this transitory social incarnation.