There. The exposé. This one’s for you, mister. Though it's hardly what you intended.
There’s something very attractive about terseness. About leaving things unspoken but not quite unsaid. About a vague suggestiveness that could be, yet need not really be. About leaving half-baked thoughts half-said. That is, in fact, the most accurate form of expression.
Of course it’s also easier on the hands to write less. And when writing copious pages there is always the danger of losing oneself in the forest of words, distracting yourself, ending up saying things that might seem quite interesting and eurekaesque, but nevertheless quite far out of range of what you originally intended to say. Short pieces stay well within the field of your central microscopic idea. It builds around it. Long pieces grow out, branch out, move on. More matter, maybe more sense even. But the beauty of expressing one single thought, in just as many words as it really takes to express that one thought. That feels quite right somehow.
It’s all about the mood. Sometimes one wants to think as one writes. Sometimes one wants to write for the sake of it. Sometimes one wants to say just one little thing and move on. To more little things.
It’s probably a phase as well. Perhaps one runs out of wrapping paper having covered everything in sentences, paragraphs and pages for years. Perhaps it’s Zen. Or Nick Drake. Perhaps it’s saving more time for thinking.
Perhaps it’s none of these. Perhaps I don’t have so much to say anymore. Not in so many words, at least. For the time being ;)
There’s something very attractive about terseness. About leaving things unspoken but not quite unsaid. About a vague suggestiveness that could be, yet need not really be. About leaving half-baked thoughts half-said. That is, in fact, the most accurate form of expression.
Of course it’s also easier on the hands to write less. And when writing copious pages there is always the danger of losing oneself in the forest of words, distracting yourself, ending up saying things that might seem quite interesting and eurekaesque, but nevertheless quite far out of range of what you originally intended to say. Short pieces stay well within the field of your central microscopic idea. It builds around it. Long pieces grow out, branch out, move on. More matter, maybe more sense even. But the beauty of expressing one single thought, in just as many words as it really takes to express that one thought. That feels quite right somehow.
It’s all about the mood. Sometimes one wants to think as one writes. Sometimes one wants to write for the sake of it. Sometimes one wants to say just one little thing and move on. To more little things.
It’s probably a phase as well. Perhaps one runs out of wrapping paper having covered everything in sentences, paragraphs and pages for years. Perhaps it’s Zen. Or Nick Drake. Perhaps it’s saving more time for thinking.
Perhaps it’s none of these. Perhaps I don’t have so much to say anymore. Not in so many words, at least. For the time being ;)
