Blog Posts

Considerate Communication

I find I write for two reasons:

1. To communicate to someone
2. To process my own thoughts

When communicating to another person, it is considerate to be concise.

Whereas my own thoughts may ramble across the page like partially broken wheels spinning off on multiple tangents; following them all to a logical end is unlikely, expecting others to parse out their meaning is impudent, almost. Their value is in the process of penning them down - to capture the fluttering ideas and inchoate thoughts with excess of detail and emotion as I experience them.

When I write for myself, it is to understand the puzzle. Before I can share those thoughts, I need to assemble a picture from the pieces.

To spill ink onto the page with reckless abandon feels like committing a crime against the reader - a grave sin that I must avoid, their time is valuable and their attention limited. Have I pained them their time for no purpose? Was there any value or meaning in the conveying of my message? These doubts are not for the reader to wallow in - they are my responsibility to understand before I share my writing and my thoughts. I must stand my ground so that the reader can use my writing as a sounding board, a perspective to consider or argue, a fixed point from which they may see new light.

There is beauty in succinctness and meaning between the spaces.