I feel like adding quotes from someone else to your blog post takes a bit of originality off it. It makes it less of your own idea. But I’m in this conflict where there are just some things that have been said by others that perfectly encapsulate the idea you are trying to get across in your own writing.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “In the mind of geniuses, we find our own unarticulated thoughts.”
And that there is me doing the thing I would prefer not to do, adding quotes from others into my own writing.
Citations and references to works of others feel more fitting in academic writings and science papers, or in some reporting-journalist piece. Not in a personal post — then it just feels like one is regurgitating another person’s ideas. I feel like a blog post should be a repository of truths from your own experiences. But experiences are different by individuals and what makes you deserving of someone else giving a shit about your own experiences?
There’s a possible clue to that question, and here’s it:
There are 8 billion people in the world with each unique and infinite experiences, but the range of emotions that results from those experiences are surprising limited in range. They are either positive, negative, or ambivalent. There is a limited range of words to describe experiences that the regular human would have over their life time, and this is a chance to connect with them — but again, this shit is easier said than done.
Here’s Cal Newport’s advice on how to have people interested in reading what you have to say.
1) Have an interesting point of view on a topic people care about.
2) Be the right person to write about the topic
3) Be an actually good writer. In terms of structure, narration, and content.
I am none of that shit. I am an expert on nothing, I am an awful writer, and I have no interesting point of view on any topic.
I should spend the rest of my life dedicated to some craft of value and create something useful in the world. But I also have this compulsion to type words into a page instead and then show it off to people, so they’ll think I’m smart.
And in the words of Naval Ravikant.
“The difference between sounding smart, and being smart is keeping your mouth shut.”
Echoing the age-old saying about how a fool speaks because he feels compelled to say something, while a wise man speaks because he has something to say.
And again, this is me quoting words of smarter people, instead of using my own words. And now this all sounds less original than I’d like it to be. I’ll never be a great writer. I’d go off now and try learning to code.
But what can I do. I am a practiced free-association writer, with years of touch-typing practice. Which means that I can type faster than I can think, which is a problem — because it is wiser to think before you type and talk.
Being a practiced free-association writer means I can pick up a keyboard at any point of the day or season and bang on my keyboard nonstop for at least 30 minutes, whether the words make sense or not. Over 2 years of practicing will give you that capacity.
Free-association was something I started to help with my toxic shame and deep psychological issues, the idea is from Sigmund Freud (hence his photo at the intro to the post)— because it helps you understand deep parts of your psyche, but now it’s become an excuse to show off that I can free-associate.
I can bang on a keyboard and produce words for endless minutes, and then I get in front of a human being and words desert me — you’d leave an interaction with me never wanting to talk to me again. It’ll probably help to go out more and talk to more people and learn to connect with human beings. But I’m shit at building relationships.
And the problem is I have a normal brain. I have no congenital defects. I can’t blame my faults on a compromised brain or some physical disability. I have a normal neuro-plastic brain that could be shaped to help me live a satisfying life if I only applied myself to doing the work. And I almost resent that. I want an excuse to be a failure.
But the folks with birth defects doing outstanding things in the world have rendered that option implausible for me. There’s folks with no limbs competing in para-olympics sport events. They’re folks with no legs who can run 100 meters faster than I.
There’s folks born blind reading braille. There is no field of endeavor in this life that no one with a physical defect wouldn’t be found excelling at and being a shining example to what is possible for a human despite the hurdles life has put in their way.
I should be inspired by these people, which I am, but I also sort of resent that they’re reasons I have no excuse to complain.
My parents have dedicated their lives to raising me and my siblings in the best way they can, my siblings are doing great, and the result I can show for all their efforts it giving them worries about the turn my life has taken for the worse.
I can take steps forward today to improve things, but I won’t. I’d start tomorrow.
As the meme goes:
