At the start of the year I set myself the goal of adjusting my read-write ratio. It felt like I had been sucked into the content machine and was spending an awful lot of time consuming without ever producing something. I had no output to show for all the time I had spent reading blogs and books and whatever else. Moreover, most of the (capital-C) Content I was reading did not spark joy.
Here we are in early May and I’ve posted a total of one article on the blog. Objectively it looks like the resolution isn’t going well. But I feel good about it. For starters, January is a terrible time to attempt any change - it’s cold and it’s miserable. May is a much better time to spring forward. What I’ve learned over the last few months is that I was chasing the wrong goal for this blog. I hoped this was a place where I could share original ideas. Instead, I’ve realised that I should be focusing on posting authentic ideas. This may seem like splitting hairs, but it could have a big impact.
Let’s start with the obvious point: being original is hard. Finding an idea that is original and interesting is even harder. The vast majority of new ideas are iterations on the things that came before. We see this equally across art and science, perhaps referred to as inspiration or research. Some people go so far as to say that there is no such thing as an original idea, and that Everything is a Remix. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, T.S. Kuhn describes how a scientific field occasionally undergoes a “paradigm shift”, but most science builds on the existing paradigm in the form of “normal science”. In that vein, I’m quite comfortable with sticking to “normal blogging” for now.
Unlike originality, authenticity can be simple. It’s the default mode of being. What we post online tends to be an idealised version of ourselves, but by-and-large it still reflects who we are as individuals (or at least who we try to be). Being authentic can require a degree of vulnerability, which makes it harder. This is part of the challenge and part of what I’m looking to achieve with this blog: honest words that express who I am, flawed and imperfect and just winging it.
Neither originality nor authenticity place any restrictions on quality. We tend to think of original works as being elevated somehow. This is mostly nonsense. Just because something is new, does not mean it is valuable or good. Moreover, some of the greatest ideas have been around for a long time.
When it comes to blogging, I feel that authenticity is a better goal to aim towards, because it focuses on the work as a whole. A single post may not share much about its author. A series of posts over time reveal a deeper character, through what changes and what stays the same. The episodic nature of the medium is the same reason why TV can be better than film for character-driven stories: you get to spend more time with Homer Simpson than you do with John McClane.
Adjusting the goal may allow to overcome some mental blocks and Press Publish more often. It may not. After all, we have been here before. Multiple times. Going forward I hope to post once a month about technology, society, and the modern world we all live in. I also hope to share one piece a month about a film I’ve seen recently.
To finish off, here’s a hand-chosen song to complement this post, offered from me to you. It’s undeniably authentic, and crammed full of inspiration.
P.S.
After I drafted this post, I heard Van Lathan mention the same idea of originality and authenticity over on The Big Picture.
As we talk about originality lacking in Hollywood now with some of the IP stuff, I think people are saying originality, but they’re actually meaning authenticity. They want a story from a filmmaker that feels like they have to tell a story. And you know when you’re watching a movie where someone feels like they have to tell a story because they take great care and tell it in great detail. And not always like you would want them to tell it, but always the way they do.
Van Lathan talking about Sinners on The Big Picture