Limitations

The thing that stands out to me the most from that memory is that we would both receive an A, even though we wrote and thought completely differently. Because it wasn’t about how much or how little either of us said, it was about the content. Why use 100 words when I can use 10? Why use 10 words when I can use 100? You can view the issue from both directions, but at the heart of it is the idea that we should place any sort of limit on words at all. I don’t think we should.

Communication itself is what is central to this. In both written and verbal formats, the fact that we have something to say in the first place takes precedence. The human ability to communicate—to both talk and to listen—is our most important, and misused, skill.

This fact has only become more relevant to me lately. I just started a new job, and as most recent graduates are finding, we’re constantly being asked, "Where did you go? What did you major in?" Readers know that I’m an English student at heart, but I also majored in Conflict, Peace, and Social Justice, which is a very broad, hard-to-explain course of study. But every time I share this with a new coworker, I am greeted with the same response: "Oh, we could really use your help!" While I’m beyond glad to mediate conflict and help find resolutions, I struggle to understand how these industry experts, people who have worked the same job longer than I have been alive, have not put the pieces together themselves: communication breeds conflict. And conflict breeds more miscommunication.

And communication is more than just talking. The first, and most important step, is to listen. Too often we let people talk but spend their minutes of speech thinking about what our response will be. I believe this translates over to reading, especially opinionated pieces. How many of you are reading these articles only thinking about how you would have answered instead? While we should spend more time talking with each other, we should also spend more time listening. So, to answer the question of if we’re better off with social media or not, I would counter that regardless of what we have, we need to bring community and communication back to the center. Which platform creates the most fruitful conversations? What mode causes you to listen better and think more deeply?

And yet, it is more than just content. With each individual, there comes a certain style. Readers may not know that many Four Years at the Mount writers are also secret creative writing enthusiasts who scribble poems and novel ideas in between our class notes. But that doesn’t make us the same. Claire and I have taken many creative writing classes together and while we enjoy the same topics and formats, our writing styles vary greatly. She has a true talent for weaving together beautiful sentences that are chock full of imagery and description, planting you in the exact scene she pictures in her head. While her sentences are often longer, there is not a single word you can remove during the editing process. Each syllable is crucial to the effect of the entire phrase and to cut anything would be to change the identity of what Claire has written. I do not have that same knack for bountiful description. My sentences leave less to the imagination and are often much choppier and more blunt than Claire’s. It’s not to say that either one of us is a better writer, but we write about different things and therefore say them in different ways. While Claire’s exposition would require picturesque details in paragraph form, I would donate a sentence or two. Accordingly, word count, whether a goal to reach or a limit to stay under, should discriminate for the content and style. Claire needs fifty words where maybe I need twenty, and I think that’s exactly how it should be. Because they aren’t just fifty words: Claire has put something of herself in them, and that’s what makes them worth reading in the first place.

If these articles were just a thousand words on a page, you wouldn’t want to pick up the paper. But it’s because you have a desire to know the inner mind of young adults today, to hear perspectives about issues you may have barely considered, that you wait for this publication every month. You want to listen. It’s the same reason why my loquacious roommate and I would get the same score on papers that seem alien to each other. While less is more for me, to put that boundary onto Claire would be to put my words into her mouth. They would become only words at the end of the day.

I have loved my time at the Emmitsburg News-Journal for giving me the space to share my words on issues both close to my heart and those that have never once crossed my mind. Some months, I think I’ve written garbage that is barely publishable just to fill enough space on the page. Other months, I know I could’ve written a whole book. So even as I try to tell you I tend to write less, that’s not always the case. Because humans don’t do well with limitations. This is why Hemingway is famous for his novels and his six-word stories. This time I chose 100 words, next time I think I’ll choose 10. The important thing is to talk—and listen—when things really matter.