Real Change in the Real World

Reader, I'm casting a spell as you read this.

That's how word-magic works.

Every post's a spell.

Why do I blog?

Easily told: to bring about change, real change in the real world.

Not only to bring about change in consciousness, as odious old Uncle Al would have it, though certainly it begins there, but real change in the real world.

Ye gods, how grandiose is that?

Word-magic only works when someone is listening.

Therefore, in order to work word-magic, you have to make them want to listen.

You have to give them something.

You have to make what you're saying worth listening to.

In other words, you have to establish a connection.

Before hitting the “Publish” button, I always stop and ask myself first: is what I'm saying here likely to bring about the kind of change that I want to see? i.e. have I said what I'm saying in such a way as to open the reader to Posch and his ideas? Or am I just blowing off steam?

If the answer is B—as it not infrequently is, especially when I'm writing about matters that I care too much about—then I don't publish.

Well, mostly not.

A word to would-be workers of word-magic: alienate your reader, and he'll stop reading. Alienate your listener, and she'll stop listening.

Then your spell has failed from the outset, and the change that you want to see, won't come about.

In order to work word-magic, you have to say what you're saying in such a way that others hear what you're saying.

That can't happen if how you say it makes them stop listening to you.

That's why—as (alas) the Left discovered, much to its consternation, during the last election—denouncing people as bigots when they don't agree with you, or when their definitions differ from yours, is a strategy guaranteed to fail: magically, rhetorically, politically.

Really, who trained these people?

Remember: in the end, effective word-magic is nearly always something done together.

If that reminds you of sex, it's not my fault.

Quick, fast:

the spell is cast.

Moon, Sun:

and now it's done.