Say something honest (how to)

writing advice for the modern intellectual

The truth is, saying the right buzzwords and triggering the pattern recognition, either in the “algorithm” or in the vague notion of the average reader on whatever platform you’re on, to provoke a reaction, doesnt work. You can tick off all the boxes all day and it wont make the magic happen. There are two internets. There are two kinds of “writing”, two universes of writing. This was also the case before the internet. “The internet”, that is, social media post 2007, merely formalised it.

One universe is the one of copy. “copywriting”. Words and words and words, than no one ever actually reads. This is the universe you try to succeed in when you try to solve it like a logic puzzle, of ticking the right boxes and using the right buzzwords. it’s not that it doesn't, technically speaking, work – it’s that even though it does, no one will ever read it. Except robots. You gotta ask yourself, do you really want the admiration of robots.

The other universe is that of humanity. Of actual people who breathe and eat and shit and cry and think and speak. And read.

Once you see this distinction, it can’t be unseen. Most things today are written for robots, not for humans. A lot of things you used to enjoy. Tv shows, tv “tropes”, tv writing – this is all for robots. Copy. Categorically. There is not a single exception.

Growing older today, you have two options in matters of taste: nostalgia or bitterness. Sour grapes. “back in my day”ism. “cope”. Either you become a reddit pornbrained beardbabyman who eats candy and makes a soyface, or you become a LARPer poser who pretends to read books and is full of yourself and larping as an intellectual to cope with the fact that you’re a failson.

The previous paragraph was written in robot. Here is the same paragraph in human:

it’s not the case that you grew out of star wars, or that star wars was “turned bad”, or that someone “ruined” star wars. What happened was that you discovered what “star wars” always-already, was. And the bitterness in that experience is not one of petty consumer dissatisfaction that your baby toys aren’t fun any more, it’s bitter because there is an implication baked in there that you were wrong about what you thought media was. You were wrong about what you thought art was, and what it was capable of. The bitterness is that of accepting a personal failure, in this case, specifically a conceptual failure. A mistaken belief. And correcting your worldview, that certain things you thought were possible, are not. It’s growing up.

There is a sense of shame in that kind of thing. And shame is a wonderful thing, a blessing for humanity. Shame tells us where we need to go. Shame can be your guide.

Writing goodly is incredibly easy. The only thing you have to do is say something honest. This is universally available and any living human being can do it, man woman and child. There is no skill or talent involved. The one trick being, it is very likely you don’t know whether you are lying.

Personally, I spent the majority of my life not knowing. I did not even consider it in these terms, and only on one fateful evening in a hotel room in france, did I discover it, by literally looking at my face in the mirror.

I figured myself a very good reader of faces, a good reader of Men. I had been doing public speaking in front of crowds, reading my own poetry to crowds of people, for a couple of years. Until then, I had used public speaking, “the audience” as my mirror. I would say: I write these shameful confessions, of being weak and stupid and still being fucked up about a girl in highschool, or ranting and raving about my (bitch) ex girlfriend, detailing what she made me feel and how unfair it all was to me, and all these pathetic confessions – because only by saying it out loud, would I know whether it was true or not. “I can write this whole screed, I can literally write a manifesto about how she was a dumb bitch – or how she was wonderful, or how I’m in love, or how im brave, or happy, or unhappy, or broken – but saying it out loud, to someone who is genuinely listening, is the only moment where I know whether what I’m saying is true.”

How? One simple trick. When I get up on stage and say she was a bitch, the instant I say it – I can tell whether I’m lying to them. It’s hard to describe further than this as a passive reading exercise, for you, the reader, because it is exactly the active part of expressing it, speaking, that is key. Shame is illuminating.

There’s a nuance there. You can both feel ashamed about, realising it’s true and that you’re admitting something private to strangers, making yourself vulnerable. You can also feel ashamed about realising you’re lying. In the moment, it’s clear as day. You know it when you see it.

This is what mean “humanity”, when someone say that a text contains “humanity”. This is what mean “gonzo journalism”. “gud writing”. It’s someone looking themselves in the mirror, to see if they’re lying. Or more precisely, it is just someone who cares whether they are. I wouldn’t presume to say that the specifics of my case are universal.

I was so far from truth that I didn’t even know, that I didn’t know, whether I was lying. I had to discover, that I didn't know when I was lying, and I did so by accident. I got into poetry by accident. A string of accidents. I knew someone who knew someone who happened to be a guy short for a thing, string of coincidences and accidents. The only thing I did was follow my shame.

Come join a poetry slam? That sounds incredibly lame. Excruciatingly cringe. Imagining doing that, curls your toes. So I did. And it was humiliating. So I kept coming back. Because it was humiliating. Even now admitting to that, because I know what people think about that, I know what “poetry slam” is to the rest of the world, is incredibly humiliating and I would rather not do it. I would rather insinuate something vague about “public speaking” or “poetry recitals”. Because it sucks. It’s shit. It’s terrible. It’s a woe is me competition and every stereotype about it is true. It attracts fucking terrible people who get off on it. Use it for evil. Use it to wallow and self aggrandize and weaponize pity. So what I’m saying is, it’s a very easy world to succeed in because the competition is shit. They’re not even trying. All you have to do to make it in poetry slam, is to just say something honest. Do that, and you win the competition that evening. Guaranteed.

To care whether you are lying is what makes you human. The difference between the two worlds is that robots don’t care. Spreadsheet algorithm buzzword thinking doesn’t care whether what is being said is useful or true or accurate - anything. Caring whether robots, or robot-people, are lying, is to miss the forest for the trees. Look at the text, and judge - not whether they are being truthful, not whether they are being honest - but whether the author, if you rubbed their noses in proof that they were lying - could they ever feel shame?

also, this is basically why smart phones have turned everyone insane in the last 14 years, the mirror problem. don’t even get my started on “filters” are you kidding me