Here's the thing: two sentences right next to each other within the same paragraph are related. The sentence is merely one tier in the hierarchy of organization

Here's the thing: two sentences right next to each other within the same paragraph are related. The sentence is merely one tier in the hierarchy of organizational structures that frame writing. The paragraph also forms a unit of structure in which one or more related sentences collectively convey an idea. I'm not suggesting there is no use for a semicolon - for example, I like to use it as a separator for a list of clauses if one or more of the clauses contain commas - and of course this is one of those grey areas of English grammar in which the author's use is not objectively wrong. However, it overloads the sentence and makes reading more difficult without any real benefit over the simpler alternative of connecting related sentences in paragraphs. Likewise, I'm not opposed to writing long sentences. After all, the first sentence in the previous paragraph runs 56 words. However, I am opposed to writing long sentences merely for the sake of claiming that long sentences are okay.