Perhaps Harold Pinter is the lodestar of post-literate
social communication. In Pinter,
everything that matters is contained in the unuttered and/or unutterable. Our lives, especially now in this tenuous,
anxious era, are repressed, or, like the contents of a propane tank, are highly
energized, volatile thoughts and dreams compressed within us, moving us along,
bumping us into things, dodging uncertainties.
We spend our energies avoiding what our fears propel us toward. Utterance, after all, is attempted contact
and response. And, for the most part, we
demur, until for matters of personal worth, we press the release valve, and the
troubles manifest.
Yielding to the perceived necessity of not uttering leads to
an existential crisis. If we don’t
respond to or don’t initiate utterance, we risk increasing the pent up energy
already in the tank, so to speak. If we
do respond or initiate, we run the risk of judgmental and/or hostile reaction
from the other(s). In either case, we
will then have become exposed, the release valve will have been triggered, and
the slightest unintended spark could ignite the volatility leaked into the
communal space.
In Pinter, as in other smart writing, we can experience this
by “watching” as apparently innocuous utterance devolves into treacherous,
demeaning conflict. Or we can be mindful
of what’s going on in our gatherings. Perhaps
our current sufferance within the spew of social media represents our
resolution of this existential crisis.
Perhaps all current utterance is essentially an overwhelming released
gas, a numbing pollution of our dissociative, solitary, disconsolate space
bereft of any triggering and ignition.
Is it really any wonder that we have a gnawing sense of
distrust among us?
