If I write for readers, I must give some thought to who they are. Do I have an ideal reader? Readers come in all types. Do I write for family? Do I write for friends? Do I write for strangers? Family, friends, and strangers--that's potentially a lot of different sorts of people.
Let's focus a little. Readers would probably belong a certain social class, because generally you have to be rich enough to have access to a computer, with excess time on your hands (If you're Canadian, you probably owe $1.45 on every $1.00 of disposable income--stats from a CCPA article.). Probably a certain educational level (incredibly the UNICEF says one out of five adults are illiterate, two thirds of them women). Probably speakers of English, the de facto global language, whether we like it or not (Mark Kingwell says that language determines, in a larger part than we would care to accept, what we can think and the ideas we can have) . Probably a certain generational category--probably not my grandmother's generation.
Now, the real tricky delicate part: what about structure/level of consciousness? Probably the rational to pluralistic structure--orange to green levels of consciousness--our N. American culture's centre of gravity (from various developmental studies, see integralinstitute.org). But perhaps readers could be coming from a mythical or magical level (which is just fine and appropriate), especially when it comes to faith and religion.
If I write about religion (it was just Easter Sunday), how then do I approach it? Matters of faith, big picture questions, questions of ultimate purpose, God, Allah, Jehovah, Brahman, Great Spirit, and so on. Sprituality and religion are difficult to write about, because various levels are open to hearing different things! If I write about Jesus, do I talk about the magical Jesus (beloved of pre-conventional or egocentric stages), or mythic Jesus (of absolutic conventional religion), the mental-rational or historical Jesus (of Vatican II or Jesus Seminar), or perhaps some kind of post-rational Jesus (described by Ken Wilber, in Integral Spirituality)?
Let's focus a little. Readers would probably belong a certain social class, because generally you have to be rich enough to have access to a computer, with excess time on your hands (If you're Canadian, you probably owe $1.45 on every $1.00 of disposable income--stats from a CCPA article.). Probably a certain educational level (incredibly the UNICEF says one out of five adults are illiterate, two thirds of them women). Probably speakers of English, the de facto global language, whether we like it or not (Mark Kingwell says that language determines, in a larger part than we would care to accept, what we can think and the ideas we can have) . Probably a certain generational category--probably not my grandmother's generation.
Now, the real tricky delicate part: what about structure/level of consciousness? Probably the rational to pluralistic structure--orange to green levels of consciousness--our N. American culture's centre of gravity (from various developmental studies, see integralinstitute.org). But perhaps readers could be coming from a mythical or magical level (which is just fine and appropriate), especially when it comes to faith and religion.
If I write about religion (it was just Easter Sunday), how then do I approach it? Matters of faith, big picture questions, questions of ultimate purpose, God, Allah, Jehovah, Brahman, Great Spirit, and so on. Sprituality and religion are difficult to write about, because various levels are open to hearing different things! If I write about Jesus, do I talk about the magical Jesus (beloved of pre-conventional or egocentric stages), or mythic Jesus (of absolutic conventional religion), the mental-rational or historical Jesus (of Vatican II or Jesus Seminar), or perhaps some kind of post-rational Jesus (described by Ken Wilber, in Integral Spirituality)?
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