I Reached Inside The Brain of A Blogger And Found a Heart
Sadly it was wrapped inside a limp lettuce
I’ve noticed there’s a certain minority —as in small number, not ethnicity or sexual persuasion or otherwise — who do not have a good grasp of language.
They know all the words and they can knock out good grammar, punctuation too. But their writing has the desperation of a limp lettuce lurking in the salad hoping someone will hallucinate a crunch.
These people turn up in comments talking proper shite like they never even read the article on which they’re commenting. A word triggered them and they have an opinion regardless of whether or not it fits the context.
Worse than this — because let’s face it, there’s a lot of wine involved when we’re writing comments — worse are the people who write articles without a clue how to put their thoughts into writing.
It’s very sad.
So today, I’ll be fixing this.
It’s a free lesson, donations accepted (psst: if just one person steps up, others will too.)
First, a love letter to language
Motivational gurus are all about sex. They’ll spend all day talking about how amazing it is a certain sperm met a certain egg and created the magic of you. (Yay! Live your best life!)
But not a single one of them will talk about that other thing that’s even more responsible for you being here: language.
When language was invented, it changed the course of evolution. You became more of a certainty than ever before because it allowed marriage certificates to be invented and signed. Your bloodline is full of people whose passageway to Earth was assigned by a wedding ring.
Language enabled people to articulate their deeper feelings along with observations and questions about the world. Thoughts became more sophisticated as words made it possible to develop, communicate and receive answers about what they were thinking about.
Communication would still exist without words, but it would be slow with many limitations. Just look at the animal kingdom.
Language is the atom of religion, medicine, philosophy, fast cars and faster fashion. If people hadn’t figured out how to massage language into exploring themselves and the world, valium would not be a word.
Thank you, lovely language. For freeing our thoughts from shackles. And for letting valium be invented to help us deal with them.
Limp lettuce writing wastes the writer’s thoughts
Everyone feels the power in writing and that’s why all and sundry want to blog. With writing, you get to persuade, influence, learn, explain, discover and teach.
All those thoughts floating around in the head fit so well into words!
Massaging thoughts into words is the closest thing to power for a person not born into royalty or money.
And yet all the writing gurus are busy teaching you to write like you speak so you can show your personality and stand out. Like showing your personality is the most important thing in a piece of writing.
I’ve never met a writing guru who teaches a student to get up close and personal with reading comprehension.
I reached inside the brain of a blogger and pulled this out:
I’m super-excited to have my own blog. I’ve been through so much in my life and there were times I didn’t think I’d make it. But I pulled through and got myself on track and now I really want to help everyone achieve their dreams. I’ve read so much about Jeff Bezos and he’s so inspiring. I want my business blog to be super-motivational and inspiring too and make a difference to so many people and pull them out of financial misery and into a world of success and happiness!
I read the blogger’s blog post:
Jeff Bezos was an average person who worked very hard and became a billionaire. Work at your goals every single day too and whether it takes ten years or fifteen I guarantee you’ll make it.
Whatever super-motivational, inspiring thoughts this blogger was having, they didn’t make it out on the wings of language.
Personality isn’t everything
It’s not fair to make people sit through your personality without rewarding them with some of your best thoughts.
Nobody’s motivated by limp-lettuce business bloggers telling them to work hard because Jeff Bezos did and look where Jeff is now — let parents give advice like that!
Bloggers are supposed to pilot the reader through the things that really matter:
- How to finance an idea when your parents won’t give you their life savings like Jeff’s did
- What will make a venture capitalist look at you the way they look at Jeff
- How to get back on to the horse of life after a big fuck-up… like you did!
It takes effort to help people navigate life even when your intentions are pure. You’ve had experiences that could help someone but it takes effort to distil those thoughts into language.
It’s much easier to say, work hard and one day, you’ll be Jeff too. Strut the streets of Streatham and you’ll be Naomi Campbell too. Talk shite on Twitter and you’ll be Elon Musk too.
Minds were thinking before words came along which means the atoms of words are feelings.
Feelings become thoughts. Thoughts become words.
Personality comes after you’ve put those thoughts into words you know.
If you can’t make your words fit your feelings, it’s time to massage your brain with something good to read.
Get a good brain massage
Doing a lot of reading gives you something to boast about on Instagram and when you do it properly (reading, not boasting) you get a lovely brain massage too that limbers up your ability to link thoughts together.
The art of understanding what you’re reading is called “reading comprehension” at school.
Writers call it investigating the magic of language.
Studying sentences teaches you to see what’s been layered into the paragraphs. You start drooling over how writers weave emotions into their story and it pushes you to do the same. Humour, knowledge, anger, envy, excitement… a story that makes people feel something is a story they’ll remember.
Comprehension exercises help you extract meaning, notice pacing and flow.
Yes it’s hard and troublesome. But you’re allowed to close your eyes over your good book for a bit, plenty of people do!
Imagine you’re reading the life story of Jeff Bezos
- Passive readers read Jeff was a poor boy who pursued his goals and became a billionaire.
- Active readers read a symphony. They see the drivers and the personality quirks. How this happened and caused that. How one person’s destiny can never be replicated by another in a formula.
Which of these two readers will walk away with a story worth sharing?
By studying story, structure and meaning of other people’s work, the writer in you starts doing the same to your thoughts so when it’s time to write, you actually have something non-limpy to say. No more, work hard and you’ll be Jeff.
You can make your words say what your mind needs people to feel.
A couple of favourite pieces I’ve read in the last few days
Both writers have their own voice, their own style. They use everyday words massaged to present their thoughts to the reader with clarity and emotion.
- In Defense of my Mother by Heather Monroe — the descriptions in this piece place you in the moment and the haunting tone showcases the subject matter.
- Things I Learnt From my Mentors by Steven Jones is a “life lessons” article with warmth and depth. I like how you can feel Steven’s sincerity as he’s sharing messages from the people who influenced him.
Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
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