vira

why they were reluctant to use words: they were afraid of the false precision writing forces onto thinking. They were afraid of premature precision and the confusion it breeds

I think the implication is that I can’t handle it. He has good reason to think so. My current day job involves reading books by the pool, making long lunches, and occasionally sending Slacks or emails. I have no experience working in kitchens. I hardly even have experience working outside of an easy, mostly remote media environment. The hardest... See more

words are laborious. When we put words to a thought, we have to compress something that is like a web in our mind, filled with connections and associations going in all directions, turning that web into a sequential string of words; we have to compress what is high-dimensional into something low-dimensional

Ideas can feel complete. It's only when you try to put them into words that you discover they're not. So if you never subject your ideas to that test, you'll not only never have fully formed ideas, but also never realize it

Forcing the diffuse ideas and impressions in your head into a definite statement is an art form. You have to grab hold of what is floating and make it rigid and sharp. It can feel almost embarrassing, revealing your ignorance with as much vulnerability as possible.