I suspect most human communication has always been banal; looking at the graffiti carved by Greek and Roman and later French troops into some of the pillars and other remnants of Egyptian civilization it seems we rarely get beyond Alcibaides has nice legs! and Valerian snores like an ox.

But we don’t preserve these transient ephemera (unless we’re Harvard Professor of Social Trivia & Graffiti Empowerment) and so they’re lost to time. We do make efforts to preserve those communications that impart something of value, so we still are able to read words by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes, Catullus, Caesar, Chaucer, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Hugo…

Writing is probably always a little narcissistic because we’re continually struggling with the medium itself, looking for the right word, the right rhythm, the most effective way to stir within the mind of the reader a spark of connection and understanding that ultimately yields some fragment of value that we have delivered unto them. Would we do it unless we thought we could, at least in some measure, succeed? We write for ourselves but always, I think, in the hope that someone out there will read and resonate. That’s the essential difference between an InstaSnap influencer and a writer and it’s the same difference between a Tennyson or a Pagnol versus someone who churns out Harlequin Romance novels or thriller-sexcapade potboilers sold in airport bookshops. The former tames narcissism in the hope of creating art while the latter is merely churning out formulaic trash for the sake of their bank-balance.

We remember, sometimes, the former but the latter vanishes unmourned. And that’s how it’s always been, as best as we can tell.