INFINITE FACETS

November 11th, 2020

For anyone who has read or listened to a good chunk of what this platform offers will notice trends in topic.  Episodes, or posts tend to orbit the same concepts.  Indeed for some -god forbid- it might even seem repetitive.  The goal isn’t to bang anyone over the head with the same thing so much as it is two other insidious goals that are far more difficult: to find a better way to convey an idea and to perhaps find the slippery and subtle nuance that will resonate deeply with each individual person.  What makes sense to one is gibberish to another, and what sounds common place to many might be golden insight for one.

It’s always a fresh astonishment when a reader reaches out about an episode that felt mediocre.  “I hope you made the gesture of a chef’s kiss when you hit send on that episode!” One reader recently wrote in response to an episode that had me questioning my ability to write well in the first place.

Every topic out there has virtually an infinite set of ways that it can be treated, described, and explored.    Certainly not all are worthwhile.  Any random set of words could be claimed to be a treatment of any one topic, though such a whimsical association does little if any good beyond being pedantic about this notion of there being infinite facets to every topic.  

Writing in this way is much like spending time with someone you know quite well.  No matter how well you know someone, no matter how much mutual time has been spent, there is always infinite surprise buzzing beneath the surface of every person.  Though it’s the same person, there’s simply no way to know exactly what subtle shade and nuance of their being will express itself to us in that sweet moment of merely connecting with another.

Even more important is that familiarity can breed the magic of synergy, producing results that are continually better through time.  This is obvious within the realm of writing when we move through drafts of a single piece of writing.  Sometimes it takes a hundred readings before a simple fix makes a sentence shine beautifully. 

We need only extrapolate this to pieces of writing all revolving around the same topic.  Who knows what will emerge on the next pass.