The Rise of the Em Dash
Lately I've been thinking of the em dash. It has been having its moment, like that individual who has just risen out of obscurity. Yes, that small but glaring indicator that the piece of writing may not be yours. I've used the em dash sparingly in my own personal journals/writing. It was never a key piece of punctuation in my writing. But lately, because I've been using AI so much just for asking stupid questions and ruminating through my thoughts, I've started to use more of it in my own personal writing. You know what they say? That the more you read an author, the more you echo their style. I think I'm starting to become not just the writers I read, but also a bit of AI. I'm starting to realise some sentences do sound better with the em dash but I'm also realising that using the actual em dash is a lot of work: 🪟+ . just for the emoji/symbol function to show up, so I've resorted to using the good old -, not because it looks better, but because I'm lazy and also, to show you that these are my ideas - from my very own head, heart, and soul. When I think of my laziness in regards to the em dash, I'm reminded of what Gino D'Acampo once said: "minimum effort, maximum satisfaction". I'm working on more essays. I'm excited to show them to the world, even though mostly no one will read them. But I enjoy knowing that they've come out of my own psyche, and not AI.