Why I Write
In everything I do, I am authentic. I care about what I put into the world; the value that it brings to myself and to others. It is far too often that I receive communications, or read articles, or blog posts, or Twitter posts, or news articles that the further I read, the more I find it saying absolutely nothing; word vomit, slop in the purest form.
The way I communicate, it is only inhibited by the limitations of my mind and by my vernacular. My writings are untainted, unprocessed, free from artificial distillation. And this is important to me for a variety of reasons.
First and foremost, writing is one of the most assiduous and tedious avocations. The process absolutely sucks! Crafting an essay or article is time consuming and inconceivably difficult to perfect. And yet, I WANT to become a great writer. For nothing more than to develop the skill.
However. As I have been practicing the craftsmanship of composing narratives I have found myself developing patience and an ability to appreciate the sound of silence - two skills I didn't really think were in the cards given my genetic makeup. When I write I tend toward internalization; I tend to monologue within my mind as I think through the motif and how I desire to pen the journey for myself and for the reader. The journey must be articulated, within reason, as it aids in the orchestration of how I think or feel about the topic.
For instance, while in the midst of writing the previous paragraph there were several moments of pause and reflection as I pondered just a portion of my process; and while meditating on my process, my mind meandered to thinking on just what a prick Benjamin Franklin was.
Second, it's about honesty. It's about respecting the reader - let's be real, that will likely only ever be myself - enough to put the energy into the quality of the communication. That's not to say that all my writings will be excellent, or that they are all well formulated, or that they are even thought through cohesively. There is just as much need for essays and tutorials with foundational research applied to the narratives as there is for shorter, wandering articles that have no further purpose than to entertain an idea or an individual.
Quality is not singularly contrained to a degree of excellence. Quality is equal measure of dignity and character.
Far too often do I receive correspondence from colleagues that are lackluster in their quality. I'm not just saying in the informal day-to-day messaging back and forth or verbal communication; rather, I'm talking about how one formally addresses the needs of a business, or the content of entertainment, or material for education. Without hyperbole, I receive a handful of formal communications each week where the sender didn't even care enough to review the contents of agentically produced correspondence, documents or various other business material. Literally hours are spent deciphering and correcting the intent behind these communications.
Woe is me, I know!
Beyond personal correspondence, and within the world of the wide web there is a shrinking number of quality writers. And to be fair, there are an equally shrinking number of quality readers. This is all hyperbole, of course, as I am not providing any real evidence of either. But alas, one likes to mourn the loss of the ephemeral world that may never have been, yet certainly was.
Having spent many moments in reflection while writing this, the hubris of Benjamin Franklin would not allow my mind to rest until it brought to remembrance within my conscious something he once wrote under the pseudonym of Silence Dogood.
"It is observed, that the generality of people, nowadays, are unwilling either to commend or dispraise what they read, until they are in some measure informed who or what the author of it is, whether he be poor or rich, old or young, a scholar or a leather apron man."
- Silence Dogood (pseudonym for Benjamin Frankin)