On Writing

Writing is one of the most humble, yet oldest, form of art and communication since civilization. Thanks to the birth and growth of languages as a form of communication, writing has expressed human thought in ways where talking makes it sound less effective. Granted, unless one of us are poets, we may not remember the last time we wrote a haiku but that doesn't mean we can't make one, if we so choose. Despite the rise in artificial intelligence (AI) being able to write and craft a well-written piece, I still think writing is the best way to communicate and will stay here until the end of Time.

What's So Beautiful About Writing

Thanks to former high school classmates, Jake and Josh who I often tuned in and listen to their intelligent conversations after school, I took one of their advice in taking up reading. That alone made me want to pursue writing, and not necessarily as a career (that sounds nice though). I wanted to write and do so eloquently because the beauty of expressing my thoughts, reviews and reports is visually and intellectually appealing. It's able to 'paint' a mental picture where an image or a video can't describe nor explain; It's what compliments the reader on what's being discussed and what's going on. Image(s) and video(s), especially by today's standards, are able to explain and show the whole gist without words and writing itself, but at times, words hold value to reader(s) that stick better when read instead of something when watched. On the artistic side, words help draw scenes, characters and situations that reader(s) themselves are able to visualize in their own minds. Because movies don't accurately depict stories in their original form, the beauty of stories in written form leaves reader(s) a lot to be desired. Better yet, they are able to imagine such character(s), scenery and situation in relation to what they think the writing come off as, and not fixated by what was being reenacted in the movies.



Another beautiful thing about writing is its inexpensive. A pen(cil) and notebook/paper are all you need; Digitally, a computer with a keyboard along with a text editor software, or a word processor, are all you need to start writing. Me? I like to keep things simple and low cost as well, and being that I'm an advanced user, I do my writing via GVIM with LaTeX coding, but I sometimes do some writing on Notepad on Microsoft Windows; On Mac, the software TextEdit is good as well; On Linux, I use LeafPad; For all platforms, I use LibreOffice; Otherwise, I stick with both GVIM and, if need be, I also use Emacs. Not much equipment is required to start writing as there are plenty of pre-installed or free software at the ready, as the only thing left is your creative mind to jot down what it is you want to share or showcase. In today's digital world, writing your piece(s) can be easily translated to many different languages, enabling your written art to be read by people around the world.

Writing is also best when some topics of thought are better written than verbally said. While, yes, talking and speaking on behalf of it would show listeners and watchers how words tell story, but at times, writing allows the audience to do their own intepretation instead of having to see it acted/uttered out. This is why vintage books stand the test of time, as its stories and information are still valuable today. Even though those authors of such books are sadly no longer with us, their writing have left us a legacy that portray their voices and talents through their writing and what they wanted to share with the world since it was originally published. It's like we can feel their presence as we read them (spiritually, they're probably flattered having bought, owned and read their books).

Caveats Of Writing

Given that attention spans are rapidly growing shorter and shorter, writing has become a "too long; didn't read" (TL;DR) predicament form where some reader(s) don't have the patience and time to know what's written. Granted, yes, some pieces of information don't need a five-paragraph post to get the author(s) point(s) across, and is better mentioned immediately without all the fluff. If you're a frequent visitor of our website, we don't specialize nor do we allow TL;DR pieces on our website, as we mainly appeal to those who sit and read what we have to say and what we present; We also do this to encourage those despite the impatient yet hectic lifestyles some people have to chill out and relax, to read word for word the things we're saying and sharing. We know this would affect visitation, and we're sure at some point we'll allow it, but for now, we want to stretch our time and efforts to crafting everything we post and share here on KCU Network.

Another caveat to writing is context. Some articles, blog posts and other forms of writing may be susceptible to be taken out of context; Somehow, being read in a way that may sound controversial or something that may trigger. Ambiguity may be the reason, and for that, here are some examples:

- "The weak don't deserve to live."
- "White is better."

It is generalized statements like these, often found in comments sections on various website and social media, where you'd find statements like these. Hard to say depending on the person, the alleged "schtick" they're pulling off, sarcasm and whatnot, it is vague sentences that beg more clarification. First off, to say the weak don't deserve to live is a "kick to the knees" whose weakness may or may not be a fault of theirs, but are trying to continue living without bother. Even though an author would have to explain what they mean by such thing, in this case, it could be more of a blunt statement to toughen the reader(s) mind, saying so vaguely can be taken out of context and will likely raise eyebrows. Secondly, for the next statement, is controversial on its own. You want to start a fire, this is something that could spark it. It's a vague statement—white is better in...what way? A car? T-shirt? More information is needed, but nevertheless, it's statements like the second one where it can be taken out of context.

You get the idea, but there are some comments, statements and (opening) sentences that are likely to be misread or misinterpreted from the get-go. Whether this is the author's intent to keep readers' attention is the likely tactic. It's much like people on YouTube whose thumbnail image shows very apocalyptic pictures titled something along the lines of "This is shocking!" or "WATCH THIS BEFORE IT TAKES TAKEN DOWN!" just to get unsuspecting visitors to click and watch the video. Thankfully, YouTube doesn't increment view counts unless the viewer has watched at least 30 seconds to a minute in to the video (assuming the viewer doesn't fast forward or skip, but that's as far as I know). Nevertheless, because it's such a vast website, many people are doing all they can to garner some viewership to attract and keep their sponsors, if they have one or more, while pumping out videos on a frequent basis. This goes the same with writing, and even though, during this writing, things have been very busy for me behind the scenes, I still shell out some posts because writing is a joy for me. If I ever got hired to write, it wouldn't feel like work and will feel very much at home doing so.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) And The Future Of Writing

You can "artificially" create a written piece without any effort or thought at all. However, due to the structure and usage of word(s), some people are able to catch on with the fact that such a piece was artifically written. Some words don't compliment each other and don't exemplify the author's voice, sounding very "robotic," if you will. In other words, reading such piece doesn't come off as someone who actually wrote it. How can we tell? Linguistically, a human-written post, like this one, show some grammatical imperfections from punctuation(s) to the way things are said. It should be noted that this very piece is and was written by my own hands and keyboard because the choices of words and how I crafted each sentence is exactly what I would say and sound if I spoke it out. Even though, with time, practice and repetition an AI can accurately replicate my writing style and voice, I would find it insurmountable because there are days where, judging by my words, where I feel good and days where I can be hyper-critical, depending if the piece I'm writing is a blog post like this or a review. Even though reviewing products and items may have some bias, it at least allows readers know that a human being wrote the piece. Sure, an AI can keep up with all that, but our moods change at complete random and can affect the pieces we write and publish. In fact, if you've read enough posts, it's easy to tell when something's been written by AI or a human. As time goes on, our voices and the expansion of our own vocabulary changes and matures. There are times when I would write using the fancy words, but also I'd like to simplify and spell out what I say. As long as I get to write my piece and say what I want to say, that's all that matters, and I'm sure for those who have visited this website of ours periodically got a feel for how our voices come off through words. Along with disallowing TL;DR versions of our posts, while we do love and respect AI, it's not something we allow on this platform especially writing an entire piece with it. We love our keyboards so much that leaving this work for AI to do would be an abomination—a complete defeat in the purpose of managing and maintaining this website in the first place (this, along with the beautiful keyboards we enjoy using).

Where does that leave writing in the future? Unfortunately, as said earlier, because attention spans have grown shorter and shorter, the will to learn and do things requires patience which some people don't have the time. You can tell when someone goes on an online forum and asks a simple question when they could have read the instruction manual; That same person gets mad when someone tells them to read the manual. See? Unless they have some sort of attention deficit disorder, there's no excuse not to be able to sit and read something worth your while. And yes, even though this post has gone long enough, there exists someone who clicked on this page, scrolled down, scrolled back up, read some words here and there, pieced them together and assumed they know what this post is talking about. That's not bad, but there are points being explained and said that they'll likely miss, though that won't stop those from getting irritated having to live with the assumption that they knew what they just read in 5 seconds. That's the problem today, and here comes AI to do the heavy lifting, and we're looking at a future solely dependent on AI. Because of this, I fear schools may be obselete since AI can do the work, though the problem with that is the person using it heavily to get work done won't be learning anything. Ask these people simple questions about what a noun or an imperative sentence is without using AI, and you'll get a blank face from them. Unless they have some sort of learning disability or attention disorder, if an abled person isn't making the time to learn on their own, with exceptions of a teacher or tutor for guidance, they're setting themselves up for failure, plain and simple. Yeah, that comment makes me sound like everyone's parent(s)/guardian(s) but it's true. This may be why some industries/sectors remain stagnant for lack of qualified workers and candidates, and because the economy is terrible albeit businesses cutting hours and jobs, there are some jobs that need to be filled in the coming years. And if those jobs can't be filled because a certain group of people lack the ability to do something, like reading, we're in big trouble. It's no wonder some deserve them and others don't. We need to do better, and it starts with reading. If you can't string together words you've read, KEEP PRACTICING. There's nothing worse than an able-bodied person not wanting to, or hating to, read.

Not so much the writing aspect, but the future isn't great for those not bothering to read. Even if an article was produced by AI, these people with short attention spans may not notice, but will resort to the comments section to wonder if it was written by AI, and can dismiss it as such. The will to put in effort and making time to learn and practice may be the underlying problem as to what's going on today. Given that AI won't be going away now, this may be our last chance to take control and be able to do things on our own and in our own way. Failure to do that, and we'll be living in a time where we completely lose self-control and our ability to do and change things. If that includes the ability to think and speak in our own way, then it's a world that'll feel like prison. Do you want to spend the rest of your lives in a prison-like state?

Writing is here to stay, and despite such shortened attention spans, I'll be writing for the rest of my life in the same vein that many of you plan reading for the rest of your lives. Books will never be obselete be it physical or digital, and if future generations can't do anything like read or write, and having to rely on AI or summarized notes just to understand what they're reading, won't look good on us. Schools and colleges need to put in more creative efforts to encourage people to read and write, and because some students think it's okay to assault their teacher(s) over a failing grade, says a lot about the uptightness these kids have. You learn by failing, and if that doesn't motivate you to do better, then it's the student themselves who aren't going to survive. Critical thinking, which involves reading, is key to survival today and as we've witnessed in these trendy TikTok challenge videos that have become so extreme that it has costed lives, many of us know better. Those challenge videos alone shows who deserves to live and those who don't know better. All this simply stems from the ability to read, or "read between the lines," and who's providing and reporting such pieces? The people who write them. The rest, now, is up to the person.

Some of you are thinking, "yeah but Kris, AI will be so good there's no reason to write!" I say the same thing about churning butter: Why churn when you can go to the grocery store to buy one that's ready? Just because something is "out of style," or "out of practice," doesn't mean I can't learn it or do it; The same goes with learning programming languages: Just because languages like COBOL, Pascal or even Perl have lower considerations and popularity today doesn't mean someone, like me, can't learn it, practice with it or even use it (I may just do so, even though Python has the best math libraries available, but hey, as long as I get to create something out of what I want, that's all that matters, right?)

This is Kris speaking for Food For The Saints.

Kris Caballero

Founder of KCU Network and KCU Plus, Kris has been writing since he managed a personal blog made back in late 2005. Officially back to doing computer programming (software development) and video production, Kris enjoys reading books on Mathematics, Quantum Computing, Philosophy, playing old video/DOS games, digital video archiving, and listening to sports, public radio and classical music.

👤 About me ✉ Contact me