Thursday, May 11, 2023
Write about things you're passionate about using your own unique voice. Don't try to be someone you're not. Don't use platitudes or generic examples.
Finding your topic
Today, we discussed Personal Monopoly, the unique set of topics only you can cover and what will make you interesting to write.
Today's explanation was about your unique traits. What ice create do you like? How do you eat pizza? Where are you from?
Looking for combinatorial uniqueness is fruitless. A nurse from Oklahoma who like photography is still boring unless she has some unique internal perspective.
Shallow "Personal Monopoly" is a form of motivational therapy.
Uniqueness is internal. It's in your soul and your honesty. Yes, it may be nice to mix it with your background, but it's not essential.
I have an idealistic view (in philosophical sense - not psychological) on this issue.
- Mind is more primary than matter.
- Therefore, our internal faculties are more important than mere background.
Building up on that, the 12 favorite problems exercise is much better. It's not based on your past and immutable characteristics but on your interests and aspirations.
The way to build your thought leadership is to focus on things that you are interested in with passion and interest. The rest will follow.
Authentic voice
I was struggling with finishing an essay today.
I realized that I'm talking about generic platitudes. Something that I don't believe in. Some generic explanation, ChatGPT level.
The essay was about the benefits of ownership. My first reason was that owning lets you get what you want, something more than you would get from rental.
The first version of the argument was about how I can buy nice furniture for my new house. It was boring. I came up with an artificial example for a good point, but the example was killing the argument.
I rewrote it ten times. It was still bad.
So I stopped.
I asked myself: "Do I still believe in the thesis?"
I still did.
"So, how would you explain it to a friend?"
I explained that owning a house lets me geek out on the HVAC system. I'm really having fun with that. (This is who I am.)
So I wrote about the HVAC. The new version was much better.
The moral is that I need to write about:
- Something that I believe in
- Using my own language and examples
I should stop putting another "writing" personality and be myself. Hopefully, I fill find my people.