Lessons from the Silence 2

Not only do we use a colossal amount of words each day, but because we seldom struggle with our voices nor have a limited reservoir of a permitted word-count, we use them with much less thought that we realise.

I had to write everything down, and the process of writing down a conversation is different from speaking.  It's even different than IM. 

When you are communicating with someone who can speak, but you can't, then one quickly discovers some Notebook-Dynamics:

1) Word economy:  you can't write as many words as you speak because you will end up with aching hands or cramps.  You have to use less words to say the same things.
2) Speed: you can't write as many words as you would speak in response to someone, because by the time you have written three sentences, that person is already mentally moving on.  By the time you finished the third paragraph of your florid creation, they are somewhere else entirely and have started a new conversation.  Then you end up in a Two Ronnies situation, where you are answering two questions previous to this one.  There just isn't time to write as we speak.
3) Clarity: brief precision becomes paramount.  And this requires thinking a good deal more before 'speaking'.  You can't do that thing where you start talking before your thought is fully formed, in the hope that you won't need to take a breath, thus preventing your friend from cutting in, before you finally produce the beautiful sentence you were after.  That just doesn't work when you can't speak: they can cut in whenever they feel like it.

All of which, when you think about it, makes sense.  All of which extends itself into being a critique of the profligate, superfluous and decadent way we treat speech.  But the question is, can these Notepad Dynamics be carried over into daily conversation?  And do we really want to give up being able to leave all the lights on, consuming vast resources, rather than having the single necessary bulb shining in the gloom?  In the verbal storm of modern life, do we really want succinct, elegant clarity?