Can you ever be too direct with your communication / writing?
On how the art of prose reveals your understanding of the rules of social structure around you
I’m a very direct person. But at the same time, I can also be indirect and nuanced.
Directness hits the guts. It triggers. It offends. It can often times be too literal. And in some situations, it can challenge a lot of social convention.
Humans love comfort. Humans like seamlessness and consistency. However,
Lead a person in too early about what you’re going to say, you immediately offend them.
Add too much complexity, you immediately lose them in your chaotic train of thought.
I think about this now.
The higher the connection, the higher directness is effective with others. Directness only works if you’ve established a high level of context with the person/people/audience you communicate with.
The less connection, the more you have to play with prose, exposition, or other context - other mediums to build context/trust with your friends, family, or professional colleagues.
What if you don’t want to play with that prose, and you just want to be yourself?
The feeling and comfort you get when you don’t need to over-rationalize yourself with others, where people can accept your word for who you are. The dream life, right?
Life isn’t so simple, unfortunately. This probably only works for the 10% of friends, family or professional colleagues who know you truly well.
I wrote a piece about “What type of artist you are?” a few weeks ago - something I often realize is that the medium we choose is a projection of the voice we want to bring to the world around us.
The architecture you build, the virtual concerts or characters you design, the fashion garment you create, the materials you design - all indirect elements that take time to be able to communicate.
And they’re indirect. They’re based on time. You’re not supposed to get it immediately. And some artists actually don’t want to be too literal. It might bring back a lot of (good) or (bad) memories.
I believe this is why the decentralization web3 philosophy has a lot of fans.
Not purely because of blockchain / NFTs, but rather it’s engaging into debates about media publishers and brands, and how some level of restructuring is needed to meet this new demand for more intimate personal expression.
The desire to re-shift curation toward more personalized audiences means you can be direct with who you are, or you need far less context to reach your audience.
You don’t need to click-bait your content, but rather be more intimate toward a more niche group.
I think that’s what we’re waiting for.