High Road Communications

Well, the Writers Guild of America strike has been resolved, and we can soon return to our regularly scheduled programming. With the clatter of keyboards starting up again south of the border, I can’t help but think about the power play behind those weeks of withheld words.

At some level, every writer hopes the words he or she types  or scratches onto a piece of paper, mean something to somebody, and that they will affect change—whether it’s a scathing political article in a newspaper, a pulpy romance novel or a straight-ahead press release. But few are in a position to witness their impact in the way that the WGA has over the last few months. So imagine for a moment what would happen if the world’s writers put down their pens, closed their laptops and refrained from writing for a day. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the world as we know it would grind to a halt. News broadcasts would be done on the fly, business proposals would be stymied, university students would run amok and Jeff Probst and Howie Mandel would rule the airwaves.

So, to celebrate the strike’s end, and avoid the dystopian world I’ve described, give the writers in your life an extra little pat on the back. It might leave them speechless, but in a good way.