Deadlines help brevity. Maybe less really is more.
I set my timer and dive in. Why do this? I don't know but it is ok to ask. I love to write though I'm probably average in the discipline required. And it is a real discipline, with all the components.
Some are practical, as real as the need for purpose. Why should I even write? Are ideas enough impetus? Yes, indeed, they are. When one thinks, the thoughts cry for clarity. When one attempts to force concepts into syllables, clarity is a necessary by-product, or should be. Just as I paused for 10 seconds trying to conceive the last sentence, so most writers must give the mental sweat to be worth reading.
Worth reading? That's a tough one. Never have there been more written words in the cosmos, never more digital-lingual competition for our attention. Since I've only 10 minutes and this amounts to an almost forced free-writing exercise, I will opt for slowing down and only attempt the thinnest, and hopefully most obvious, point of analysis.
"Worth reading" brings to mind the phrase "most compelling analysis" a particular news outlet uses to promote their work. I submit trust is also involved. Trust is earned in various ways, certainly through exposure to ideas that seem to comport with reality. But we also tend to trust those who speak well and who tend to agree with our own premises.
This last is bias in a basic sense but also as natural as thinking, quite literally. No one can exist well with constant re-examination of their own primal ideas. Imagine constantly questioning the law of gravity, testing it, listening to objections. Ok, that may be too easy an illustration.
But for another example, if I must constantly re-consider my love for and reliance on the premise of liberty I will be very frustrated in my thinking about, or reading/listening to another's essay.
I'm out of time. Will have to keep working at this "10 minute idea." All fortheloveofit, and grateful.
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