I’ve decided to embark on a journey of writing short-form essays.
My goal: be mostly useful, irrespective of the topic.
As for topics: whatever I fancy.
As for length: arbitrarily limited. We know something is too long without having it precisely labeled as such. When I write by hand, my words are fewer than when I speak or type. It is not a matter of quality. It is because handwriting is a natural constraint on quantity. My thoughts must keep pace with the limits of my hand. Thoughts are therefore simpler, but not simple.
Constraints are freedom.
I have a lot to say. So a limit seems like a good thing. Speaking is how I think. But I don’t have as many useful thoughts as I have words. Instead of giving myself limitless space to sort things out, I am forced to distill my thinking. In doing so, I hope to mitigate self-indulgence. I am writing, hopefully, only what is optimally useful.
Our world is full of more information than any one person could hope to consume. Even with my short-form limits, why add my voice? I am not credentialed. I am not prolific. I am not proficient. I am not an expert.
I am an explorer.
Exploration does not require expertise, only curiosity.
Exploration is the articulation of what is assumed to be known, true, or real, but has yet to be illustrated in a map that we can utilize. We explore to learn. We learn through experiences. What we learn becomes wisdom. We share wisdom with words. Our words are who we are. Even so, words require sharpening. Otherwise, they are not useful. A useless person is the greatest waste.
As a child, “Jesus wept1” was my favorite verse to memorize, for obvious reasons. Now, I have memorized not the words, but their pure, simple, insightful beauty. Those two words are all you need to know about Jesus if you were limited to one glimpse of who he is.
Exploration is the articulation of territory, even known territory. There is nothing that is known that cannot be more known. The goal is not to merely document the uncharted. It is to chart. To articulate is not for indulgence or adventure (those are byproducts), but to share something useful as others journey. Sharp, useful words create the optimal map.
I have observed that our maps are now controlled by a smaller group of experts. The overreliance on expertise has created a natural consequence: Outsourced thinking. That is not to say that experts are all wrong or untrustworthy, or ill-intentioned. I am saying that we are wrong for assuming they are right. As a result, we rarely make our own maps anymore. We assume we have them because we have read the maps of others. But this is not the same as exploring and forging our own thoughts. It is distance-learning, couched observation, and memorization at best. At worst, it’s lazy adoption of unvetted ideas that ultimately abandon you under pressure, leaving you vulnerable and feeling foolish (which, by definition, you are, if you don’t think for yourself).
Outsourced thinking has two consequences:
First, a diminished ability to think critically and to articulate thoughts consistently, and (especially in defense of one’s own ideas) clearly, without combativeness or negative emotional influence.
Second, we cannot retain information. If we continue to outsource our thinking by primarily consuming thoughts of others, 24/7 news cycles, and ephemeral content products, we can expect to be mindshareholders2 of shallow, ultimately useless information that is never what we need it to be when we need it the most.
Consumption is constant and autonomous. Comprehension is deliberate and requires work. Even if we can recall word for word what we’ve consumed, we often lose intent. This, indeed, is not knowledge or memory that fails us upon recall. It is a failure to transform all that we have learned, experienced, or felt into something useful: wisdom.
Wisdom is of the highest utility and is infinitely communicable. It is gained through curious exploration, questioning, and visceral, meaningful experiences.
The wisest people are the most curious. Their questions are relentless. To know what questions to ask, to be curious, you must wander. You must wonder. Leonardo da Vinci was perhaps the most curious person ever. He wrote and sketched whatever he observed, as it occurred to him, regardless of his task at hand, trusting that he would find something worthwhile eventually. His notebooks are many wanderings and few maps. But when he finally charted a map, it was a masterpiece. All of his apparently useless wanderings served a true and final purpose.
We wander to discover. What we discover is what we think. What we think is the sum and expression of who we are.
There is already enough complexity in the world. We do not need to generate more ideas. We need to iterate on current ideas. We need relevance. Usefulness. Help. We need maps that have distilled complexity into simplicity so that we can comprehend it and utilize it. Because we are not all on the same journey, we need different maps. So this is my map.
I invite you to wander with me. Explore with me. Argue with me. Think with me. Do not consume. Consider. Do not accept. Reflect. Engage.
Then write your own map.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_wept
Could you expand on what you mean by "Our words are who we are?"