Why Talk?

A few remarks on why you may be suitable to say things you want to say

A few weeks ago, I was talking to one of my friends who is also one of my co authors in this channel when he said, "Sometimes I feel like I am talking to the void." Later in the same conversation, he added, "Sometimes I feel like all I say is empty words."¹ Both these remarks were about his Substack writing experience, not his friendship with me (or so he claimed). At the time, I focused on the first remark, to which I personally respond as: "Maybe if I keep writing, some people (love u guys) will start reading." Yet, as I kept thinking, I noticed I may have a few words on the second remark as well. So today, I'd like to talk about empty words spoken on the internet.

First and foremost, the emptiness of anything written on the internet is completely subjective. When words are put together in an order, they start conveying abstract meanings. I am convinced that it is very difficult to put together a few grammatically correct paragraphs without conveying any meaning whatsoever. However, the conveyed meaning does not necessarily have to be the one that the author intended.

Alternatively, emptiness of words may be thought of in terms of substance. He may be saying, "My words are junk food, and they give nothing to the readers." Now, this is a bigger concern for me personally because I often seek glory in writing things that are worth being read². He further claimed that he felt like he was not suitable to talk at all. To tackle this claim, we need to first establish a key component in a discussion about writing on the internet. The justification.

In my experience, there are two types of people who craft and launch large blobs of text to the internet. First are those who are compelled by the subject to speak out. These people may be highly motivated hobbyists or nerds who appear out of thin air when a subject appears, or those with social sensitivities that cannot remain silent against some injustice or perceived wrongness in the world. Second are the kinds of people who like saying things in general and use topics as excuses to start talking. The former kind does not trouble themselves with justifying their comments because to them, the topic itself justifies their presence. Thus, the concerns for justification more or less only exist for the latter sort of people, and it usually takes the shape of "why me in particular should be talking about this?" In true the stuff I've been writing for the past few weeks fashion I will focus the rest of this post on my answers to this question.

Direct Experience

You may be the person to talk about something if you have experience directly related to the topic. Then you can start from your personal experience to reach wider conclusions to your heart's content. Depending on the magnitude of the experience, you can use your identity to justify the wildest of claims on the internet. While similar things happen to most people, each life is unique. Thus, by definition, you are the most qualified person to talk about your experiences.

But beware, as one of my favourite stories, The Little Black Fish³, argues. Most fish cannot comprehend the bounds of the ponds they live in. When done in excess, justifying your words using your identity and experience will make you very easy to discredit, and your claims will be particularly vulnerable against people from similar backgrounds.

Show and Tell

The world is a large and wonderful place. Most of the wonders it is full of can also be conveniently used as interesting points to start a conversation. This is one of the methods I use in my posts. When you see something odd, show it to your companions, and they too agree that it is odd. You can take a picture and use it as a justification. It is generally accepted that when a visual is presented, the presenter gets an opportunity to tell what is interesting about it. Your first interpretation may be overruled by the internet majority, but at least even when you are wrong about a picture, the fallout is generally contained in the picture itself. Furthermore, if such a thing happens, you can then claim you "sparked a conversation," thus you were justified in bringing it up.

Be funny (or otherwise engaging)

A stand-up comedian has a very difficult job. They need to get up there and basically monologue for two hours. Their content is often the epitome of being without substance. In fact, in his latter years, the famous comedian George Carlin's stage show was him complaining about people and stuff for two hours. When people are sufficiently entertained, the concern for substance becomes secondary. This is not to say that funny things lack substance. On the contrary, I consider comedy to be a perfect substance delivery device, sugar to help medicine go down if you will. But if you like talking and if you are sufficiently entertaining to listen, you can use your entertainment value as your justification.

Be original

If you have a brilliant idea or a truly original concept, and you are sure no one said anything like that before⁴, you may be justified in sharing it. Admittedly, it is bonkers to assume you are the first person to think anything. The thoughts are free. However, the threshold is somewhat lower for actually executing ideas. That is why there are popular videos where they are building a trebuchet but not videos of people who are considering them. The most plausible way of writing about original ideas is doing a test (which will probably be original due to the reality constraints) and writing about how that went. If you can convince the right people before doing your tests, you can even publish your findings in a respectable academic journal. However, this approach has a glaring weakness: it may take years from finding your idea to actually talking about it. But when all your work is done, you are justified in talking about it.

Translate Ideas

If original idea generators are the farmers and artisans of the internet, the translators are the merchants. Just like the real world, the internet too has barriers. Some content is behind a foreign language, some is behind scientific jargon, and others require local context to explain. You may be familiar with people from both sides of a border and profit out of carrying ideas in-between. Unfortunately, just like in Confucian China, merchants are not as reputable as farmers on the internet. Yet, again similarly, they are essential for a functioning society. If you believe a topic is partially obscured by a border you are able to breach, you are justified in talking about that topic until the difference is eliminated.

Be Popular

A final reason why you in particular may be a good person to talk about a topic is that there are people who want to listen to you in particular. This way, if you are unable to justify speaking by offering any value either in terms of personal experience, ideas, or arbitrage, you can still have a reason to keep talking. This option is very popular with burnt-out YouTubers who end up running low effort podcasts or streaming games. The problem with this approach is that it, by definition, means your texts will lack any nutrition since if they existed, you'd be qualifying for any one of the previous approaches, but again, this approach seems to be popular, so I included it in my list of answers.

My list is not conclusive; I'm certain there are other reasons why a particular person is justified in talking about a particular topic. If you reached this far, I'm sure you can tell I am a second type of person. The question of "why should I be writing" occurred to me much before I talked with my friend over it. The list, therefore, is more of a precaution. If anybody ever does come up to me and ask "why you?" I have a list of reasons I can pick to justify why I wrote the text in question. Yet, internally, the reason can only be "because I like saying things."

As I kept thinking about my friend's question, I realised that it has a framing problem. The question asks for an internal justification to keep writing. However, a justification is only relevant when someone else asks why you are doing something. When the question is internal, you only need to know one thing. "Do I want to be saying things?"

1. You may be wondering why I treat these phrases as if they are similar. In Turkish, these are very similar sounding phrases, as empty and void, both roughly mean "boş". So he basically said, speak towards empty and speak emptily. But I wisely decided to alter his words to maintain the flow of the paragraph.

2. As emphasised in the words of Pliny the Younger: "True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it." Now you may be thinking, "Is this you trying to write worthy material" to which I'd respond "dude, uncool".

3. I actually read The Little Black Fish when I was eight years old. It was a gift from my elementary school teacher, and it is included in the reading list of what my mother believes ruined me. 5 stars.

4. I loosely quoted this song for the previous sentence.