Perhaps it was once possible to think of writing as something beautiful and wondrous, an amazing conduit of silent communication between soul and soul. For a monk in the 13th century, maybe all writing was worthy of illumination. We are now, quite obviously, a long way from that.
This is the era of linguistic overproduction and downgrading. There are the rapidly developing AI language machines, with their endless ability to create new texts out of pre-existing ones. And, meanwhile, there is this other infinite factory of words: our constant production of online language. Graphomania is the new condition. Every day, millions of people write out a long series of opinions, blogs, TV one-liners, memories, confessions, reactions, heartfelt tributes, funeral notices: a whole apparatus of self-presentation. To be a writer is now a universal syndrome.
