but the same picture has led us to become lazy, mindless robots who consume media passively without processing the ideas and products that have been subliminally introduced to us.

sure, a picture may paint a thousand words; but the idea of capturing the moment in a 612 x 612 pixel frame, adding layers of filters and then a caption comprising hashes really has dumbed our minds. we no longer see the need to search for the words to express ourselves.

On the longest day of the year I found myself on what is billed as the “highest motorable pass in the world,” though “motorable” seemed as much a stretch as did “road.” Icicles were hanging from the mountainside and plaques around every turn recalled those fellow travelers, most of them soldiers, who had “left for their heavenly abode” after plunging over the precipice that runs along the edge of the barely paved, loose-stoned road. As my ever-cheerful driver clambered out of our rickety Toyota (no license plate attached) to fiddle with a loose starter–emergency repairs at 18,350 feet!–ominous pink fluid the color of Pepto-Bismol began to trickle out of the truck in front of us.   - Excerpt from here by Pico Iyer

Shakespeare will probably flip if he saw how people have started adding hashes in front of phrases that do not make sense. so yes, i would like to start writing properly again. i'll be taking baby steps because words no longer come as easily when most of the things i read start with #ICYMI or #OOTD