Either You Say What You Mean or You Don't Mean What You Say: On Losing Readers

It was in late fall 2006 while writing for a different blog that I got the first comment saying, "I'll never read you again".   I didn't know why they bothered saying it.  Well, it's clear the reason they said it, they didn't agree with something I wrote - probably on the foolish, futile new atheist war against the vast majority of the population.   But was the declaration supposed to get me to change what I was writing about?  Was it kind of a threat to shoot the dog if I didn't stop writing on that topic?

When I have had students interested in composing, my very first instruction is that they have to find out what the music that they want to write is, in the end.  That's the real goal.  If they write music because they think it will get the approval of other people, they should let those people write that music because it won't be their music.  Before any attempt to train someone in harmony and counterpoint, they've got to have practice in writing music they like.  My approach to writing is the same.

I write what I think is true, what I think makes sense and what I believe is most likely to produce something closer to a decent result, a livable planet, a tolerable society that is headed into the direction of a good society and world on the way to a good an just world.  That is my absolute bottom line, more than any other goal.  More than what I would like to be true, more than what any reader wants me to say, more than what I might want to be saying, more than I want people to like what I say.  Though it's really nice when they do.  I can't guarantee that is going to happen but I can guarantee something else.   When someone goes to the bother of reading what I write, the least I can give them is the promise that I mean what I'm saying.