JASON KNIGHT

Meta: This is an experiment in writing form. Using a simpler writing form, to talk about writing. Hopefully that's not too confusing.

My brain has always brimmed with thoughts. But these thoughts tangle when exiting my brain. I've learned to write like a juggler. Shunting many thoughts into complex sentences. But this blog post is different. No commas. No complex sentence structures. No parentheticals. None of that.

Just simple writing.

Fears of mine abound. What if it sounds stilted? What if I sound mechanical or robotic? Will I lose my voice? The answer to all of the above is yes. To some degree. But I'd trade much for clarity. And approacability.

Complex sentences happen when trying to say too much at once. When does that happen?

Fear of errors

The first is when you're afraid of factual errors.

The real world is complex. So simple statements alone are never true. An anxious person afraid of conveying falsities attaches layers of qualifiers. This attempt at accuracy leads to mealy-mouthed statements. Academic prose is rife with this behavior. Typically worsened with complex jargon.

The tower of knowledge

The second is for lack of trying. Any complex idea can be broken down into simpler ones. Perhaps you'll take this statement on faith. Because it sounds like it's probably true. How do we know this is true?

Knowledge is not objective and absolute. It is relative and contextual. What you know is not as concrete as you think it is. Here, I'll show you. Think of the most concrete thing imaginable. Now let us peel back the curtain.

Let's say there's an apple on your desk. What do you know about that apple? "Red" you say? What is the color red to you? You've learned over your lifetime what red means. But how do you know that your experience of red is anything similar to the "red" of those you know? Why does the redness of the apple change depending on the colors of the things around it? Or the amount of light in the room that the apple is in? When you've eaten the apple, is it still red?

Let's stop there to avoid getting too far off the track. But I could keep going. And perhaps will in a future blog post.

How does this help us? Knowledge being relative mean it is malleable. Any concept or fact can be sliced an uncountable number of ways. Those slices can be further sliced. Ad infinitum.

But the sword cuts both ways. The relative nature of knowledge means we can decompose any complex thought into simpler ones. But this decomposition at the same time doesn't mean as much. Helpful for this purpose but not for that one. Helpful for this person but not those.

Fortunately these nuances matter less than the punch line: writing can be clear no matter the topic. But it takes effort and understanding of your reader. Good writing broadens your audience. But there is no free lunch.

And now I think it is time. Time for this experiment to come to a graceful conclusion. Without more rambling.

P.S. Perhaps only after multiple rounds of editing that something like this turns into interesting prose? Maybe worth a try.

P.P.S. Indeed! Editing is where clarity really comes from. Polished out from the roughened cut. And what's more: you can dig into the logic. Expanding and enriching. Only to need another polish to smooth the rough burrs.