QUESTION:

What is a picture of a thousand words worth?

I read this on Reddit I think- something the boys were showing me during family time.

Of course I made a mental - and later a typed - note. And of course we discussed it- though from memory that conversation was neither politically correct nor age appropriate- for any age! It won't be repeated here. (What this mother hears from two teenage boys - without any one of us possessing filters - during family time... stays in family time.)

A thousand words. That's the value of a picture apparently. A single image eliminating the need to... clack keys till you get the thousand perfect words. (The intimation being that the picture  (or is it the words) may well take longer and be harder than one might think?) 

A book is a series of pictures though- think about it. Most of us are writers on here- we know well enough the 'sketching then painting' of scenes. The blending of words to create the perfect mix (hue) of a sunset- say. Or capturing a particular 'light' on a beloved face.

What are a thousand words worth then? If you frame them- rather than format them on pages? Art within art... (My brain goes to strange places, I know!)

Not much- turns out. Because of the 'rarity' factor. (Unless we all go back to handwriting and eliminate 'copies'.) There's only ONE Mona Lisa; ONE Starry Night; ONE Sistine Chapel.

We, alas, measure Literature by popularity aka 'sales'. We depend on volume- the opposite of rarity and individual distinction within other art forms. Rather than plonking our art on a wall or a platform or a piece of earth and waiting for the crowds to stand before it and acknowledge its magnificence... we place it where they are- in their hands, either in paper or more-so these days, in digital form.

Yet. Some of those thousand framed words - were we to frame them - they took just as much time as the masterpieces mentioned above. (And within, contain as much anguish and self-doubt and overcoming fears and sticking a finger up and pushing the limits and 'giving it all'.)

Some of those thousand words are, indeed, worthy wordy Masterpieces. 

(And no! Digital libraries are not The Louvre. As bookshelves - and books - are replaced by digital files... the last vestiges of words having any value akin to any other piece of art-) Oh crap, wait!

... Tis then, then, that Literature will interpret 'rarity' as those works surviving in paper form- but... not necessarily Masterpieces- just the ones fewer people kept in physical format! Which then makes them... rare but... pedestrian? (Yeah, another weird brain-leap.)

Will tomorrow's thousand-word masterpieces be the least-deserving of this status? Will they have gotten there because they were bought and forgotten somehow at every subsequent 'book purge'... resulting in them surviving longer- and the true literature stored away in hard drives and 'the cloud'?

(I may start writing in pen again and framing every thousand words. Hedging on the future- you know?)

You? What is a picture of a thousand words worth to you?