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If there's one thing human beings cannot handle, it is being bored.
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Minimalism is a lack of personality, a lack of edge.
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How do you define minimalism and maximalism?
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Maximalism is high Victorian fid minimalism, short, sharp, choppy pros.
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The transition that we've had as a society from maximalism into minimalism. It's the words we use. It's the way we speak. It's the way we think.
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It feels like the sharp edges of of humanity have been sanded down.
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What happened when we went from the typewriter to the word processor?
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is it's almost made things too perfect.
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I copy and pasted a bit of Shakespeare into Microsoft Word.
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What do you think happened when I did that?
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What I want to do is I want to spend this entire conversation talking about one thing.
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And what it is is is it's the transition that we've had as a society from maximalism into minimalism.
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And this is my my thesis that we live in this world of minimalism.
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And maximalism is good for the kind of personality that it brings, for the kind of energy and texture that it infuses into writing.
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But minimalism is really good because it's clear and it's understandable and it allows for writing to even be efficient.
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But my question, and this is where I want to get to by the end of the conversation, is how can people develop a style that incorporates the very best of maximalism and the very best of minimalism.
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So, that's where we're going to go.
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But before any of that, let's talk about why this is so important.
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Why is this question, this balance of minimalism and maximalism, why is it of crucial significance? Sure.
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It's a hell of a question.
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I'm excited for this quest we're about to embark on.
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But in short, minimalism, minimalism and maximalism is almost like this.
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You can put on glasses when you start to see them.
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And once you start to see them, you see them in literally everything.
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I mean, the clothes you're wearing, shoes you're wearing, the chairs we're sitting in, this table, all of these things, how they look and how they've been designed are are influenced by that spectrum.
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by that spectrum. the on the one side maximalism on the one side minimalism and not just the objects in the world around us the buildings and the cars it's graphic design it's the words we use it's the way we speak it's the way we think and for that reason I guess you know as
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soon as as soon as you know you can zoom in on on one particular point about minimalism versus maximalism and you're only 10 paces away from talking about global problems and challenges essentially like writing has fluctuated a But you know sometimes it's clearer
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sometimes or rather it's more maximalist sometimes it's more minimalist and I think what you're referring to we're essentially now and this is true not just for writing it's true for architecture and and graphic design and and and art generally and even music itself um we're currently in a
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minimalist era coming out of a maximalist one right so you had the 19th century early 20th century think of the Victorians um and Victorian maximalism and you know like even my grandparents house when I was a kid um was covered in flowery wallpaper. Right now, all the
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Right now, all the walls in every single house is just plain white or gray or some sort of, you know, very neutral color.
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So, we're essentially coming out of this era of maximalism.
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So, we have this view that, oh, the entire past must have been like the era we're just coming out of, um, which ended, you know, in the middle of the last century, but it's not true, you know.
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So, so if you, you know, it's certainly true of the Victorians, but anyway, go back to the 17th century.
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Milton can be very hard to read his pros.
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probably the best example of of a 17th century writer, but then look at the King James Bible, right? 1611.
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That stuff even now, I mean, there's a few archaicisms in there. You can read that book.
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That that is extremely clear language and extremely minimalist to be honest.
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I mean, how many times do they just use the word and, you know, I wish I could quote the Bible um by heart, but I can't.
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But you must have read the King James Bible, right?
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No, I actually never read a single.
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Yeah, but you must be familiar with how how it's written.
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how it's written. Um the point being it's actually incredibly simple and and we can read it now and that's way clearer like you would understand the King James Bible which was you know written by a committee of of how is it was it 49 translators the best thing
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ever written by a committee um they say it's a miracle that ever happened these translators that stuff is beautifully clear and then also I think if you read 16th century stuff Elizabeth and around the time of Shakespeare talking pros rather than you know um poetry or or drama read pros from at that time. You
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You know, these guys are fairly obscure now, but Thomas Elliot and Roger Rasham or or Thomas Deca um these Thomas Brown as well actually he's brilliant.
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The 16th century pros is easier to understand than 18th or 19th century pros.
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So, I sent you a bit of Carlile as this beautiful example of the kind of writing which now would just be utterly unpublishable.
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I mean, carile was a fairly unusual man anyway.
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We may talk about him later and the way he essentially created his own style.
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But anyway, what I'm trying to say to you is it has changed.
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The pendulum has swung back and forth.
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Um, and and 500 years ago, it was relatively simple.
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Look at look at Chaucser, man.
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Have you read any Chaucer?
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So, Chaucer, if you read him in the original, it can be quite hard because he he's essentially writing in quite an oldfashioned version of English with the spelling.
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But if you modernize the spelling, Chaucer is as clear as daylight.
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You wouldn't miss a single thing.
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Um, and he was writing when? Sure. 14th century.
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We're going we're going back six six or seven centuries, man. A long long time.
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Um, so the pendulum does swing back and forth as the years go on, but yes, right now we're clearly in a minimalist age.
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How do you define minimalism and maximalism?
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There there are different ways to approach this.
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I mean, I feel like there's a very easy way, which is a bit of a caricature.
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And the the caricature of maximalism is that high Victorian fid sentences running to a page long filled with like in just just insane verbiage, you know, where where instead of instead of door they'll say portal, you know, instead of loud, you know, they'll say viciferous or something.
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This this is kind of stuff and just going on and on and on.
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That's the caricature of maximalism.
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The caricature of minimalism is is I guess, you know, Hemingway, Hemingway, Hemingway, you know, just short, sharp, choppy pros.
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um you know the the the $1 words versus the $10 words as Hemingway said.
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They're the two caricaturures.
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I think in reality it's a bit more complicated than that and it can get a bit blurry because both of them have got if you like a virtuous side and uh how how can we put it a harmful side to them.
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I'll send you a bit of Carlilele.
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You try and read through you know maybe you pick up one of these books here.
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I don't actually know when they were published.
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And you'll and you'll be lost.
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Like you won't you won't have finished the first sentence of the first page and you won't know what the hell is going on. Right?
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That that's the the the bad side of of of maximalism.
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Then the virtuous side is and I think this is probably what you really want to talk about when you write in a maximalist way, which I think I think means being willing to risk using those big words.
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being willing to risk using slightly more height slightly more heightened diction maybe you using more punctuation um using some semicolons let's say you you sort of you it's greater than the sum of its parts and I think there are some things you can say in a m maximalist manner which you can't get at in a minimalist way and and let me put it this way how many words do you think there are in the English language 500,000. Close.
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So, so I think it's something like 750,000.
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I think about 150,000 are regarded as being in in frequent use.
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That's a that's a lot of words, right? 750,000 words.
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And the sort of malignant side of minimalism is this belief that the simple standard word always suffices which is it's essentially saying that there's not that much of a difference between different words.
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They all more or less mean the same thing.
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It's like describing love as just a state of affection between two people. That's not love, is it?
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You know, and they say, "Okay, I know I, you know, I don't love you.
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I have affection for you."
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I see exactly what you're driving at.
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And you use the word green, which I think kind of gets at what we're going for.
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That's a good example of where minimalism and maximalism, what each of them could look like.
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So you could say, oh, the the table was green.
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But you could say emerald green, which implies something very different from the green of a sunshine leaf.
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Now we have something very optimistic.
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Or you could have his face looked green, you know, and all of a sudden you're like, oo, you know, something bad is going on there.
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And the point is that what maximalism does when it gets well is it captures the nuance and the texture of life.
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And to your point, a lot of what's happened is we're saying that any words that appear close, oh no, let's just have green because the distinction is almost irrelevant.
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It's, you know, we don't need to go that deep. No, exactly.
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I think that's the problem.
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As you say, the loss is this texture, this breath.
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And the best example example I can pro I could probably give you is um the first time I I read John Ruskin.
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So the great 19th century, you know, criticis Ruskin maybe I would I would like to think and I would certainly argue with anybody probably the greatest pros writer there's ever been in English in my view.
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I mean I I love the guy so maybe I'm I'm biased.
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the first time I read him talking about architecture, right?
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This is a guy who who speaks very precisely.
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He he doesn't just have a big long sentence and you you know at every single point what he's saying, but he is constructing these beautiful long sentences and using words some of which I had to look up in the dictionary, I suppose.
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But the way he wrote about it, I was getting emotional reading about him describing the different parts of a wall.
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like he's describing how to build a wall and what the ideal wall looks like and and these various other pretty pretty dry technical stuff you'd think but it was making me emotional because he was writing with this breadth of of imagination and vocabulary and spirit and if he'd been writing as people I suppose right now um I well you know it wouldn't it wouldn't it wouldn't have as strange as it sounds it wouldn't have got my my emotions.
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What's an example of that?
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What's an example of that? So this is volume one of the stones of Venice his seinal work about notionally about Venetian architecture really it's almost like this sort of beautiful encyclopedic synthesis of architecture itself and it
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was one of the most influential books of the 19th century I mean the way this book changed the appearance of the streets around us are in London now these streets would not look the same if not for the stones of Venice anyway this is how it begins this great big three volume um treaties. A lot of it's very
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A lot of it's very technical.
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Some of it's essentially literally just like a manual textbook guide to architecture.
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So the stones of Nis chapter one, the quarry.
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Since first the dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, three thrones of mark beyond all others have been set upon its sands.
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The thrones of Ty, Venice, and England.
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Of the first of these great powers, only the memory remains. Of the second, the ruin.
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The third which inherits their greatness if it forget their example may be led through proud eminence to less pied destruction.
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My immediate reaction is I need to reread that.
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And also I felt a sense of grander and magnificence like the words felt like they had a weightiness and an aliveness to them. Okay, great.
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This this is man we got some material here.
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So first point you feel like you need to read it again.
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Now, this is this is this may be the thorn in in our sides during this conversation.
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You said you felt like you needed you need to read it again and you said it like that was a bad thing. Yes, I feel that way. Why?
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It's this obsession with efficiency. You're reading it.
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Come on, let's get through it. Let's get through it. Yeah, man. Exactly.
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Yeah, man. Exactly. and and and if I could pick one defining quality of modernity and again I'm not I'm not here to crap on on the modern world whatsoever but just on this specific point I would say convenience you it's your guys it's the Americans you you invented convenience no what I mean is
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it's like if I can't get in now and I can't get it straight away why bother and this is what I mean by the kind of the and there's so much going on here there's the kind of there's a bit of the anti- elitism a bit of reverse snobbery there's also we can go into the whole we can go all the way back to first world war and where this came from. But
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But equally, in fact, majorly probably is just this convenience.
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Like if I have to read it again, it's crap. Like what's the point? That's bad writing.
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But I don't know, is it bad writing?
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If you have to read it again, is something bad just because it takes time to understand it.
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I don't I mean like as in like have you ever been in love? Right?
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You don't just meet someone and think if I like either I love you or I don't.
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Takes time to get to know somebody.
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And I think treating literature and pros and writing in that way, I mean, admittedly, in that case, if you had read it yourself, you may have understood it more quickly versus me reading it out.
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I'm not the best um elocutor of of words, but but you know what maximalism does is it creates an environment that you can live in for a little while. Yeah.
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It's not just information delivery.
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It is actually creating a vibe, an environment almost like personality, right?
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Like when you're hanging out with somebody, this isn't just an exchange of words.
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This is an exchange of this is the energy that cultural tutor brings, the vibe, and two people in a conversation are bringing that onto the page, which is very different from what do you think?
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I think this, I think that, but that's not what conversation is.
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But a lot of writing has a a lot of modern writing to get the efficiency, to get the convenience, I think gives up on a lot of the vibe. No, completely.
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I I Yes, I completely agree.
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And and there's something to jump into there as well.
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But it's like, you know, with with like a complicated idea, you would you wouldn't just you wouldn't think if I don't understand this idea the first time it's explained to me that I'm not going to bother.
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Like some things take a while to understand.
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And and with Ruskin's pros, as an example, this is this is the funny thing.
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Once you get used to it, that kind of writing, it bothers you less and less and less and less.
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and less and less. I remember the first time I started reading Ruskin or in fairness at that point I'd already been been reading far too many dusty old books but once you get used to that stuff man it does it does not bother you in the slightest and I'm not saying oh I'm this sort of expert scholar who who
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who can pass the complex pros of old writers it's just style right and and and and Carlile right this guy seems indecipherable when you first pick him up you bear with it and you read a few other Victorian writers a few other 19th century, 18th century writers, suddenly you could you could pick up, you know, any old book and it would make perfect sense to you. And and this is
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And and this is essentially just training yourself to understand it, right?
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Um and this goes back to what I was saying.
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When all we read is this minimalistic stuff, okay, you see that and you think, oh, it's way too complicated, but it's not.
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If you just if you just read a bit more of it and have a bit of patience, suddenly it's going to be like a whole new world of literature is open to you just because of a little bit of training.
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One of the things that I think is going to show up throughout this conversation is that writing can kind of be hard to visualize, but if we can look at design, if we can look at architecture, we can begin to see a lot of the trends that are happening in society and we can say that same thing is happening in writing.
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And I'll put the image on the screen, but there's this image of tech logos and how companies like Burberry and Yan, they used to have these vibrant logos that had a bunch of depth and a lot of subtlety, and now they're just flat, very easy to read, super simple, and they've lost a lot of the distinctiveness. What's going on there?
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I guess a great visualization of the problem whereby okay minimalism can be great simplifying can be good but simplification is not itself a virtue okay just because it's simpler does not mean it's better this is not a valid judgment it's a descriptive word and what happens when you simplify all the
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logos you keep simplifying you keep simplifying simplifying simplifying they all look exactly the same and the personality is gone and this is the perfect example I suppose the perfect visualization of what happens to writing when when we're obsessed with with speed and convenience, simplicity. Simplicity
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Simplicity of it, it all just starts sounding the same.
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And you go to a bookshop, as I said, you pick up 10 different books and you feel like they could have all been written by the same person, which is a catastrophe.
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You know, you mentioned World War I. Mhm.
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And you mentioned Hemingway.
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And it seems like minimalism is born out of some kind of combination of those two.
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And then also there's an influence of the mass production line in the industrial revolution.
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Those are three places that I would love.
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Okay, before we get to that actually just one point I want to go back to.
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You mentioned when I read it you said I want to hear it again but I got a sense of grandeur. Yeah.
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I just want to touch on that second point cuz this is really important and that is what maximalism brings.
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I think and this is what I think you you're interested in. Right.
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You don't get that when it's just stripped back plain easily legible um conversational pros.
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You don't get that sense of of weight, right? And gravity.
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Think think about uh the the Lord's Prayer, right?
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How how do you I'm not I don't know.
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Um this question how do you say it? Just the first line.
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Our Father, art thou in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
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Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Sorry.
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Is that a sin to interrupt the Lord's prayer?
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I don't know, but I did it anyway. God forgive me. Um, that language. Okay.
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Now, now I have some friends who who are biblical scholars who are going to probably get annoyed me for what I'm about to say, but because of some obscure stuff, but that language is is archaic, right? It's elevated, right?
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And in a sense it's maximalist, you know, like imagine if you were to tweet tomorrow or write a post on X saying, you know, um, art and thou and thy, you know, you get laugh, you get laughed off the platform, right?
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But that language in the Lord's Prayer elevates. It brings gravity.
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Would you would you would you agree with that or not? Let me add one to you.
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I memorize a lot of scripture.
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There's no other verse that I have memorized like that. Yes. Exactly. Exactly.
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Yes. Exactly. Exactly. That's what that's so which back to Ruskin that's what maximalism brings you that maybe we are missing um and that's why I love this guy so much because when it came to architecture I found a lot of you know
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obviously of late in the past few years I've only been reading old books it's kind of a rule of mine don't read any books published you know the last 50 years 5 yeah 50 I mean there always going to be little exceptions and I do try and read some some more recent
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things or it's relevant or important or even just get a sense and and and that sense of grandeur you just you you literally if you went into water stones now that's a British bookshop for for for your viewers and um and went to the architecture section picked up a book
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some of it no doubt would be wonderfully informative and and elucidating but that sense of grandeur and meaning and gravity um would be absent from it because you can't write like that now you can start a book with that sentence written in that quasi biblical language. Um, so I think in our quest to to to
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Um, so I think in our quest to to to discover what's good about maximalism and how to try and bring try and draw out those beneficial qualities and and apply them to modern day, that is something to seek is the grandeur.
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That is one thing maximalism can bring that minimalism can never quite quite get to.
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And what do you make of the industrial revolution and Hemingway? Nice.
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Oh man, I think the best way to think about the industrial revolution as it relates to the arts and and to writing as well is that there had been a way of doing things for the entirety of human history which is you do it with your hands.
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You make it with your hands.
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I mean you there are exceptions of course there were elements of of sort of mass production in the middle ages but but nothing like the scale of having a factory where things just get produced in factories and suddenly you know rather than making things by hand everything is is machine
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made um and and the effect that that had on the artists themselves is is almost it's almost I mean this is what you know actually a lot of the early modernist look and whatever spoke about this A lot of their motivation they're saying this is a machine age now. Ornament very Ornament very nice.
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Well, they didn't say that but they said it was for savages um I think and barbarians but they said ornament is for well yeah they said it for medieval peasants who make things with their hands.
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This is this is now an age of machines.
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Machines it doesn't make any sense.
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Why would you use a machine to to to to something right?
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Decoration fundamentally is just a natural instinct.
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Um think about whenever you make anything with your hands you'll decorate it.
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Think of like you you have a notebook presumably.
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I imagine there are doodles in it, right?
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You just use doodle, right?
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And even if when people make a pie, you know, you make a pie and put I don't Do you eat pies in America? I don't know. Thanksgiving.
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You know what pie is, right? Yeah. Yeah.
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Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. Yeah.
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And you make a pattern on the top, right?
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Maybe maybe, you know, you just make a nice little um some cross-hatching with an eye, you use a fork.
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We can't help it when we make something with our hands. We just decorate it.
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Our instinct is to decorate.
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And that's why everything old is decorated.
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And you get to the 19th century, even once things do start getting machine made.
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Um, there's a bit there's a bit of a hangover because people expect things to be augmented.
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Curious what you think about this and this touches on the indust like what does a book mean to you when I say the word like do do you read books or do you read do are you an ebook reader would you say? Um, probably 50/50. 5050. Sure.
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I'm guessing whenever I'm want to dip into something I read a Kindle whenever I want to live in something I read a physical book. Sure.
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So So and then do you buy like new books?
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you know, do you go to I don't know what the big book stores.
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I usually just do Amazon. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
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And what like how would you describe the book you get?
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I'm not asking for like value judgment, but just how would you describe it?
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The hard cover I'd sort of describe as sleek.
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It's almost like an advertisement and I can flip through and there's um it's a bit weighty.
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And then what I would say is but it does feel very modern and there's not a lot of ornamentation for sure.
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The pages are very are very simple.
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They're nothing like these pages, right? Look at this book. Nothing like this.
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And then the paperback is just what I love about paperback books is they're light, they're easy to share, you can bring them around easily, and they're quite cheap to print on a relative basis. Yeah, they are. So, so perfect.
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Everyone can have a book because the beauty of paperbacks, and this was the whole point of this, this is the joy of them is that they democratized literature and pros and and writing, and anyone could could get any book.
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Um, but it's funny you mentioned because I I actually brought a little book with me to to to kind of make a point about this because when you think of a modern paperback and then you compare it to to a book like this.
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This is just it's a copy of um Walter Scott's poetry.
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I I don't know if you want to show it show it on the camera or not.
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Um I actually got it for bloody really really cheap leather.
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It was only it was only6 from a local but you see it's got this beautiful sort of cushioned leather. The pages are gilded.
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Even on the front there's a gilding of Walter Scots initials and and you look inside it and the way it's printed.
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This is like a very maximalist book, right?
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Um but but that's not really the point here.
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When you see when when you hold that book in your hands, it seems to lend itself to a certain kind of writing.
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When you have a leather bound gilded book, right, you you know the the the the slightly more conversational, very clear style of modern writing doesn't really seem to fit with that book.
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whereas the old-fashioned maximalist writing seems suited to a book like that. Right.
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And I don't know, I think there's this beautiful and again this is kind of chicken of the egg story.
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I don't mean to say that the fact we're now generally printing cheaper, lower quality books, which as on the whole is is a is a blessing for humankind, but it's got to have some influence on on how we conceive of books and writing itself.
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Like imagine if I if I gave you that book and I told you to to and it was blank and I said you got to fill that.
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I want you to write I want you to write in it.
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Or I gave you just like a plain white notepad.
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Surely that is is going to is going to just even even even slightly encourage you to write in a maybe a slightly weightier dignified more elevated way. Maybe not. I don't know.
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What do you think of that?
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It's just a little little thought of mine.
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mine. 100% that that the books themselves the physical books themselves have an impact on on the way we're writing the difference we have now the um the X factor as it were is is the internet and and maybe this is something which is surely if anything could the internet
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would restrict the growth of a of a new maximalism because the way it works you know the attention economy this is something you've written about very eloquently yourself you know Like imagine I don't know the way Ruskin writes if you were if you tried to write like that online would it get traction? No. I mean we see on Twitter every No.
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I mean we see on Twitter every single day the simpler the catchier if you can hook somebody in two seconds it it's not going to win. Yeah.
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And and another important caveat this is one of my favorite pastimes is is pointing out similarities between the past and the present.
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you know, we think we've got this unique modern problem, but it's not modern at all.
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Um, like there's this great line from a guy called Lucien of of Samo Sarta, I think, or Lucian of Samosata.
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He's a second century um Greco Syrian writer, I think, during the time of the Roman Empire, of course. Really funny guy.
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He wrote this great book, which I would recommend.
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Well, it's actually a letter, in fact.
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It's a it's an extended letter, which is usually called How to Write History. Really funny.
26:10
some of the best writing advice you'll ever read.
26:12
I would advise all your all all your listeners to read it.
26:16
How to write history by by Lucen.
26:18
Anyway, um he's got this other line.
26:21
Well, I remember reading and I was like, man, this sounds like he's describing clickbait.
26:24
What Lucen says is like he can't believe he can't believe that people are tricked into reading and believing things which even the slightest inquiry would prove unfounded.
26:38
He says something like that.
26:40
um which is essentially this, you know, clickbait that you know what he's describing is someone just saying something outrageous and everyone just going for that when if you just stop and think for 20 30 seconds is is obvious nonsense.
26:52
And and you you've got to be brave if you're if you're working online to to slow down and say, you know, I'm going to write something more more with more gravity.
27:00
I want to write something a bit more complicated cuz we've all seen the um the uh you know the how long the listener or reader spends, how far they you know get through.
27:10
More complicated it gets the less time the average reader spends.
27:14
So how do you work this out in your own writing?
27:16
I you're writing Twitter threads.
27:18
You're you want to have a sense of soul and personality in your writing, but you also have to deal with the constraints of the platform. So what are you doing?
27:28
Here's let me say this wi with w with with with with Twitter or X I I obviously I try and keep I try and keep things simple but again the saying keeping it simple simple does not equate to like bad minimalism or even to good minim
27:46
minimalism maximalism can be simple as well simple is a really beautiful but really dangerous word again this is why we need to use uh more words right because simple just it's almost useless because it just grabs things on on on X. I I I keep
27:57
I I I keep things pretty as simple as I can. I mean, I don't know.
28:03
I have I use sub clauses and hyphens.
28:04
I I don't know if that's considered maximalist, but the newsletter, right?
28:08
Here's an example, I suppose, of maximist writing.
28:11
The advice I I for the Aropagus, the advice I get from I got from everybody when I started was keep it short, man. Just keep it short.
28:19
You got to keep it short. You just keep it short. Keep it simple. Keep it short. Everyone was telling me.
28:22
And I kind of bought that at first, but as time went on, I was like, there's more here.
28:27
Like, I got more to say and I I think the reader going to like it more if we can look at this thing from a few different angles.
28:32
and it grows and grows and grows and and some some of my the volumes of the Aropagus have been six or seven thousand words long, you know, and and and and the writing I'm I I'm really relaxed and my mood say if I've been reading some somebody like um you know it depends on I was reading Thomas Deca who I mentioned earlier. Deca.
28:52
He's really really funny writer. This this he's so funny.
28:56
And Steven Gossum, he's another 16th century writer. Really funny guy.
29:01
And and he uses it is clear, but it's very very like it's very colorful and he uses this really strange vivid imagery.
29:08
And when I've been reading that sometimes, yeah, I'm just going to write like try and write like Steven Goss for a bit.
29:12
And I I would never I would never tweet that stuff, but I put in the newsletter and it it seems to work.
29:18
And you know, touchwood, fingers crossed, my readers do seem to seem to enjoy it when I write that way.
29:23
So, so I've tried I've tried to carve out a bit of a space for some more some more slower maybe, you know, more maximalist writing.
29:32
A little research project that I want to do is I want to look at what happened when we went from the typewriter to the word processor.
29:41
So, if I'm talking right now and I say blah blah blah and that doesn't quite come out right, I kind of need to keep rolling with it.
29:46
But if I'm typing that same thing, I can go delete, delete, delete, delete, and then I can go back to sort of where I began to stutter or stumble a little bit and then I can write it one of the things that the word processor has done with computing is it's almost made things too perfect where then it loses a sense of personality or style.
30:08
Yes, this is I think one of these invisible changes which is has had sort of just earthshattering consequences for the way we act and and think as human beings.
30:20
Now before I get into this word pro processing thing cuz it is fascinating there's an important caveat here.
30:25
Well not a cavat sort of a qualifier about what we mean by minimalism.
30:28
And I think what you mean and what I mean by minimalism in its bad form isn't just that it's like simple, right?
30:37
Or or or or that it's stripped back pros or it's it's not that.
30:39
It feels like there's no personality.
30:42
It feels like the sort of the sharp edges of of humanity have been s have been sanded down and you pick up 10 books and they're all kind of got the same conversational tone. There's no risk.
30:55
There's no jeopardy there.
30:55
Slightly dramatic language, but I think you know what I mean.
30:58
Yeah, minimalism isn't just about simplicity.
31:00
It's also about a lack of personality, a lack of edge, and and a lack of variation, a lack of experimentation, a lack of Yeah.
31:09
minimalism at at its worst is very standardizing.
31:12
It's almost like the way we all write has all come out of the same factory.
31:16
You know, you just, you know, you put a different, you know, all serial, you know, just just with with with with different names or whatever.
31:23
That that's a terrible analogy.
31:23
Anyway, um, with that being said, word processing, I don't I don't think I've told you about this, but but there was a moment 6 months ago, and I don't know how I don't know why it had never happened to me before, but it was genuinely it kind of frightened me.
31:36
And essentially all I did, I copy and pasted a bit of Shakespeare.
31:42
Well, sorry, it was Edmund Spencer, but let's say Shakespeare.
31:46
Edund Spencer, I guess, isn't that well known 16th century poet, the prince of poets Edund Spencer was called.
31:51
I I I copy and pasted a bit of Shakespeare into Microsoft Word.
31:53
What happens when you do that?
31:56
What do you think happened when I did that?
31:59
You got a bunch of squiggly lines.
31:59
It said typo, syntax error, all that stuff. All that stuff. Right.
32:05
So, that in itself is is fairly shocking, right?
32:10
We're told Shakespeare is the greatest writer, the greatest dramatist, certainly the greatest English dramatist of all time.
32:16
of all time. and you put his words that William Shakespeare wrote who spell his own name six different ways by the way um into into word that which is used by over a billion people I think word Microsoft has something like 95% of the world's word processing market and yeah there are jagged red lines between Shakespeare not only saying you
32:41
know spelling you can kind of get that maybe although we should talk about spelling we should definitely talk about spelling Um, they're not only saying that he's spelled words wrong and his grammar is wrong, they suggested improvements as well cuz you know where they say, you know, word say do you want to try writing it a different way? Here's a a better
32:58
Here's a a better synonym.
33:01
Like that is is that not frightening that this program that's been designed in in in in Silicon Valley apparently knows how to write better than Shakespeare.
33:09
You put it into word and that's that's what happened.
33:11
you know, and suddenly I I I was like, "Holy crap, how have I not ever realized this before that the whole time in my life, you know, look look at the age we are who grew up using word processes, there's been an invisible hand.
33:23
There's been invisible guard rails my whole life when I've been writing.
33:27
I think, oh, it's just me. It's me and the words." It's not.
33:30
There's me, there's the words, and then there's this machine, this algorithm, um, telling me suddenly what I can and can't do.
33:38
And and this is another cause obviously for standardization when we all use the same um word processor and and it tells you to spell in a certain way.
33:47
It suggests certain things.
33:48
There are only so many fonts.
33:50
There are only so many templates.
33:51
All these factors combined obviously going to make us all write in a very similar way. Homogenize style.
33:55
Um it couldn't be any other way.
33:59
And and and after that moment I I I was quite Yeah. I don't know.
34:03
How did that change your writing?
34:03
I think fortunately enough I'd already been got past the point of of caring what what what the the Do you write in Google Docs, Microsoft Word? No.
34:14
So, so well it varies but mostly I use Word.
34:18
Um but but have you turned off spellch checker? No, I I I keep it on.
34:22
But what I like doing is I like adding new words to the dictionary because I so I often again I don't know if this sounds silly or obnoxious, but it's quite good fun to spell words in a slightly archaic way or a little bit incorrectly.
34:35
Um sometimes just for the fun of it, sometimes to make a point.
34:38
So that's the way we all right now.
34:40
We've we've all got the this word processor.
34:42
I don't know if you use Word or not or Google Docs, but it's the same thing, man.
34:45
It is not just you and the words.
34:47
We think it is, but it's not.
34:50
There's something else there.
34:52
How did people used to write when John Ruskin wrote the stones of Venice?
34:56
After he'd been to Venice and, you know, climbed up on on on the ladders and l investigated all the capitals, he went home and it was him and a sheet of paper and his ink stands and his pen and it was him and the paper and the word and that was it.
35:09
And obviously in that environment when thousands of people all around the world who are all writing are genuinely on their own in their room, you know, at their desk writing, there's influence and there's fashions, but there's there's a lot more immediacy there and there's going to be more variation, I think, of style and more willingness to experiment because essentially you're allowed to do. The shackles are off.
35:29
You can be yourself as a writer more truly when you're not writing into a system which is programmed to push you down a particular style of of writing.
35:38
And and look at something like Grammarly now which which which is hugely popular.
35:43
Um as far as like I don't know I see ads for it all the time. I I I don't use it.
35:50
I'm sort of I I used to you know always correct people when they pronounce words wrongly or spell them wrongly when I was an obnoxious teenager.
35:58
um you know like the word facade you someone say fade whatever well you know actually it's facade you talk about minimalism about maximalism about personality in writing car Thomas Carlilele um a good example of someone who has more personality in writing than anybody you will ever read
36:17
this guy you know when back in the 1820s 1830s when he was a young man he he very consciously decided to to to try and create a new style for his work he he wanted to be a historian and he said the way people write now isn't isn't big enough isn't powerful enough for the kind of history I want to write. So he
36:34
So he he so he spent years mastering a whole new style of English pros which ended up being very influential and you read it and the personality is just is is just bursting through.
36:45
And to give one very small example of something he does uh it's not just unique to him of course he'll often capitalize words uh in very o surprising words and he's you know he's clearly just making a point about that word and he capitalizes it.
36:58
Um that's something he decided to do at his desk with his pen and paper.
37:02
If Thomas Carlile was writing, you know, now in in in the 2020s and and he decided to do that, he'd find it much harder because Word would be telling him, "No, this is wrong."
37:14
Grammarly would be telling him, "No, this is wrong."
37:15
Everyone else will be telling him, "No, this is wrong."
37:16
You know, the spell checker has said, "The machine has told me it's wrong."
37:20
So, so, so these word processes, these these systems which correct our spelling and and guard our use of the English language or any language for that matter seem like they're helping us to rhyme more accurately, which is true up to a point, but I think more than we realize, they're actually holding us back from using language in all the different ways that it can be used.
37:51
What do you make of mass media and the decline of regional dialects?
37:53
So if you look at the American accent, it's becoming more and more homogeneous.
37:59
So classically the south southerners spoke very differently from people in the northeast from Californians.
38:05
That differentiation is going down and down.
38:08
I went to go visit Sesan's Adelier in southern France.
38:11
I couldn't believe he went to Paris and people were just like who is this guy? He's so different.
38:16
He was from the south of France and people were like what is going on with you?
38:19
And then I was just talking to a friend who grew up in India and he said that there were years of people coming to India and trying to change this colonize the country that his words not mine.
38:31
I don't know but he said you know what had a bigger impact than anybody trying to conquer India? Mass media.
38:35
Mass media has done more to dilute Indian culture than any foreigners coming into the land. Yeah, of course it has.
38:44
And this is touches on what we were saying how you know the past 150 years especially although it goes back for that have been just one long process of global homogenization.
38:54
Um everything gets quicker every therefore everything gets closer therefore everything gets more similar.
38:59
Regional dialects disappear.
39:01
Regional architectures disappear.
39:02
Everything regional disappears.
39:04
Everything becomes one increasingly global standard.
39:06
And writing is is a great example of this.
39:10
you know, when you look at old old poems going back, you know, even even a thousand years to, you know, like stuff in the dark ages, scholars can essentially figure out things about a poem based on the dialect it's written in.
39:26
They can tell where in the like I could just give you a poem written it written in, you know, the 12th century, say, and and and and you' be able to tell where in England it was written because because of the way they've written it bas based on on on their dialect.
39:38
You couldn't do that now, right?
39:40
Unless someone had very consciously, I suppose, decided to try and incorporate it.
39:44
But the point is again, it's how yeah the dialect influences the way you write.
39:47
That's disappearing as well.
39:49
So, so this is yeah, clearly contributing to to to to the standardization and and the minimalism of the modern writing environment.
39:58
We were talking about the influence of the typewriter, keyboard, and how the shifts in how we've communicated have changed writing.
40:07
But you've also said to me we're actually less literate now than we were 150 years ago. Is that right? In a sense, yes.
40:15
So I I should be very clear about what I mean.
40:17
Of course, on average, we're far more literate, which is beautiful as in the the rates of literacy, you know, skyrocketed 150 years ago.
40:26
Let's say plenty of people were not literate.
40:28
So, so when I say we, I don't mean the average literacy or the lit literacy level.
40:31
I mean people who are say writing writers, people who want to write.
40:36
I think we have this idea that literacy as in being able to write and read it's it's binary.
40:43
It's like either you can or you can't.
40:45
And if you can read, that's fine.
40:47
And if you can write, then you've got it.
40:48
And and then and then after that, it's all the same.
40:51
But this is is is simply not true.
40:51
So the reason I say we're potentially less literate, right?
40:59
When I when I read a bit of Ruskin, you said, "Can you read that again?"
41:02
Maybe if this was 150 years ago, you would not have had any trouble.
41:06
I mean, read any speech, for example, by US president.
41:10
Go back every decade you go further back, they get more and more, I don't want to say articulate, but certainly more complex.
41:15
You know, you know, even if you go back and read a speech by JFK, no president, no politician would ever speak like that now.
41:22
And there are reasons for that to deter mass media but I don't want to go into that right now as in for why that change has occurred.
41:31
Point being in the past you know generally speaking people were more things are more complicated. Why?
41:34
Well imagine like how do you I mean how do you spend most of your days right when you have a spare 5 minutes 10 minutes half an hour what what do you do?
41:42
Do maybe you put on a podcast maybe maybe you call a friend maybe you watch something watch you watch a YouTube video.
41:49
video. you play a mobile the options for the things we can spend our time doing there's this incredible range and then no one I know spends well a couple of people maybe but even then no one I know spends all the time reading go back to the days of John Ruskin you know when he was in his study
42:05
in the 1850s there's no internet there was no radio um I I I he wasn't the kind of guy to read newspapers particularly so what do you do all day you just read and you just write literally all day and so of course like any skill, the more you do it, the reading and the writing, the better you get at it. And as far as
42:21
And as far as I can tell in the 21st century, we on average literally spend far less time reading and writing, you know, practicing the art and the craft of reading and writing than people back in the than scholars and writers back in the 19th century did because what else were they going to do?
42:41
I think I want to add a layer to this that I think we spend more time typing for writing and less time doing the art of writing.
42:54
I think we spend more time reading but less time doing the art of reading.
43:01
I spend a bunch of time reading but when you talk about the art of reading, I spend very little time doing that.
43:05
And I think these are totally separate things.
43:09
There's a big difference between I'm reading something, I'm getting information, and I'm really deconstructing a text.
43:14
And when I read, for example, I've been reading um East of Eden by Steinbeck.
43:21
And I'll go through and I'll read it and I'll underline things and I'll really take note of who is this character, what's going on, why at the very beginning of the book, why is he describing the Selenus Valley like this?
43:31
And how does it relate to the book of Genesis?
43:32
And then you think about it. You walk a bit.
43:33
That's not how I read Twitter. I scroll Twitter, right?
43:35
I sort of look at, hey, that's funny.
43:37
But they're the same activities.
43:39
Normally, I'm looking at words on a page, looking at them with my eyes and processing them.
43:45
But actually, they're completely different activities, and I spend very little time doing the art of reading cuz frankly, I don't quite have the attention span for it anymore. Yeah.
43:55
Well, so this is my Yeah, great good distinction there.
43:57
When I say we spend less time reading, in some senses, we spend more time reading, but we just I mean, we're reading the news or reading social media feeds.
44:04
reading social media feeds. as you say that's very different to actually reading something and engaging with it and and there to my point so we don't do that as much now as as in as far as far as I'm aware it's just a fact I mean so you say you said you're reading East of Eden how long have you been reading it
44:20
for a few months I've been reading it very slowly a few months yeah exactly and maybe that's you know I'm there could be reasons for that but generally speaking it takes people takes yeah it's not like I read bloody 10 books a week or anything I'm I'm a relatively slow reader that's because I spend a lot of time doing other things. And honestly,
44:36
And honestly, if you sat down and you put on a timer and see how long it takes you rather, but put on a timer for one hour and see how much you can read in that hour, it'll be you'll be amazed how much you can read in one solid hour of reading, right?
44:50
and and obviously go back in in time and and and and and the these writers, they were just reading all the time and and and also writing more and and on the I'll get to the point about writing in a minute.
45:02
But the more you read, you get better you get better at reading and and and and and with something like Griskin and you say, "I need to hear that again."
45:10
You you know, you wouldn't have had to do that.
45:12
So, so you're all that you're kind of swimming in in this maximalist environment because you're better at at at the craft of of of reading itself.
45:20
So, so in that sense, I think we're actually less literate than we realize and people now really struggle to read Victorian stuff, right?
45:30
Were Victorians struggling to read Victorian stuff?
45:34
I mean, you know, for someone who's illiterate and, you know, some unfortunate soul living in the slums of London, you couldn't read. Of course not.
45:42
But but but for someone who considered themselves a writer or a reader, I'm sure they'd have had no more trouble reading your typical Florida Victorian pros than we would reading, you know, BBC news headlines or whatever.
45:55
On the writing tack, there's a popular modern writer who I think is really good.
45:59
His name is Ven Cateshra.
46:01
And little more than a decade ago, he published a answer to the question, how do I get better at writing?
46:06
And he said that the time that you spend writing first drafts, that's not what makes you better.
46:13
What makes you better isn't writing, but rewriting, shaping the sentences asking, "How can I make this better and better?"
46:20
Because if it was just writing that would make us better, then everybody who writes 50 to 100,000 emails in their career would would be everywhere would be Shakespeare.
46:29
But that's actually not the case.
46:31
It is the rewriting and really trying to work on the precision and the articulation of what you're saying.
46:37
That's what makes you a better writer. Yeah.
46:40
No, I absolutely love that.
46:40
And I think this is this is relevant to something I wanted to say.
46:44
Um, which tacks onto the whole minimalism versus maximalism thing almost perfectly.
46:49
If you read the biography of any historical figure going back sort of more than 50 years ago, you'll find that their letters are quoted liberally in those volumes, right?
47:02
You read, you know, for example, if I when I was a kid or teenager, I read a used to love T.
47:05
Lawrence, Lawrence Arabia and I bought a, you know, actually bought his letters.
47:10
But the biographies like where was he, what was he doing his day, it all comes from letters.
47:16
But it's more than that also.
47:17
There's a lot there's a lot of other stuff in there.
47:19
Um, hold that thought for a second.
47:25
In in a 100 years when when when when you're dead and they write your biography, the biography of David Pell, what what are they going to draw on?
47:31
If if if they could draw on the letters of of T.
47:34
Lawrence or the letters of Arasmus, you know, these these copious copious volumes of letters, thousands of letters.
47:39
What will they draw on for you?
47:41
They'd be emails that I fired off while I was on the subway or something. Yeah, exactly.
47:44
or your texts, you know, when I text you, like, you know, hey man, do you want to join us for a bite? Whatever.
47:50
Or, you know, texts, which is how we all communicate now, generally are extremely short, brief, episodic, and to the point. There's no elaboration.
48:00
There's no introspection.
48:02
Emails, email, you know, it's a lovely skeworphic term there.
48:08
do to some extent hold that position.
48:10
But like I don't know about you, I've got to say I don't have any sort of deep email correspondence with anybody. Right. Okay.
48:18
And this is another change where we think it's just natural.
48:20
We used to write letters and now we write texts.
48:22
But it's not just it's not just a change of form.
48:25
It's like a c we're literally doing very different things.
48:30
You read those letters of T.
48:30
Lawrence or Arasmus is actually probably my favorite example.
48:33
example. And often like a lot of a lot of quotes this is a lot of quotes from famous people you assume it's in the book that they've published or it's some poem they wrote or some speech they gave no the quotes come from the letters writing between them and their friends and their colleagues and imagine if you
48:47
and I we couldn't call each other we couldn't text and I had to sit down in a room on my own and write you a letter knowing you know letters to be fair in the past sometimes arrived quicker than we imagine but you know knowing you know if you were bloody on the other side of the Atlantic it would take a hell of a long time. Imagine if I had to sit down
49:02
Imagine if I had to sit down and just write out all the things I wanted to tell you.
49:07
So, it's me, the pen, the paper, thinking about what do I want David to know and or even the things we're discussing now.
49:12
I'm going to be sat there playing with those ideas and I want to talk about how I'm feeling and my relationship and my family and my feelings about God, whatever the hell it is.
49:20
And you it's just you and the letter and you're like you're introspecting hard and really drawing it out of yourself and it's going to you a good friend and you're going to do the same again.
49:29
That's what those letters are from Arasmos.
49:31
So, I keep going back to those two examples cuz they're two that I'm particularly fond of.
49:34
But it's true for any historical figure.
49:35
You can go and read the letters.
49:36
And now that whole art, the art of letter writing is is just gone.
49:43
And and does that matter? Well, maybe not.
49:46
But it's clearly had an impact.
49:48
It must have had an impact on the way we think and the way we write.
49:52
Again, this is what I mean when I say we're less literate.
49:56
Seemingly people then were far more I say people then that's incredibly general but someone like Arasmus was seemingly far more able to articulate and understand his own feelings and thoughts far more able to do that than people today generally speaking are because then they not because we're any different or because we're any worse just because we have less practice doing it.
50:17
So honestly, I think letter writing is just about one of the best things anybody who wants to be a writer could do because it's a very specific genre of writing.
50:26
I mean, it doesn't really fit into any other category.
50:27
You know, it's not an article, it's not pros, it's not fiction, it's not poetry, you know, it's not a blog post, it's not it's not analysis, it's not news. Letter writing.
50:37
You know, there's something here where if somebody were to say, David, what's the point of writing?
50:42
Like, why should I do it? I can talk. I can do whatever.
50:44
I would say that the point of writing is you put ideas, words onto the page and now they're still.
50:48
And now that they're still, you can go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper.
50:54
And what you get with writing is you get depth.
50:56
You don't realize the depth of whatever you were thinking about or that you could even get to that depth unless you've poured over ideas, stepped away from them, come back, stepped away, come back.
51:07
Whereas when we're texting, when we're just writing emails, it's all stuff that's top of mind.
51:10
And you hear it in the way that the analogy that people use, it's it's surface level, right?
51:18
Because it's all the intuitive thoughts that we have.
51:20
And a lot of what we're losing by writing like this is a kind of depth that you only get with rewriting. Yeah. Precisely. Exactly.
51:28
And and this is the the malignant side to minimalism, right?
51:35
You you can write minimally and and and like what we would usually call, you know, Hemingway.
51:39
Let's just use him as the the kind of metm here.
51:41
You know, you want to write in the Hemingway style, you can still do that and like and draw out all that stuff within yourself.
51:48
Obviously, you can, but when we talk about minim minimalism in its negative form, surface level is probably actually the perfect way to describe it as in it doesn't allow you doesn't force you, doesn't ask you um to to engage with yourself.
52:02
No, that's that's I mean this is probably not the topic for today, but but the knock-on consequences of that fact for the way society works where we interact with each other and feel and behave because we're because we're not doing that.
52:14
I mean that that's that's got to be I don't know it's got to be having some serious effect on on on society.
52:20
Let me defend minimalism real quick because I think I'd love to do that as well.
52:23
I think that one of the things that you get with minimalism is a kind of engineers elegance to ideas where what you can do is you can strip away everything that's unnecessary and you can say how can I basically pack maximum effect in an idea and I'll give you an example the what's probably the most selling bestselling non-fiction book of the past few years atomic habits by James Clear.
52:49
Atomic Habits is a brilliant, brilliant title because what he's trying to do is he's basically trying to say small, tiny changes, remarkable results. That's the subtitle.
53:02
What he's trying to say is these small things that you do in your life can have a big effect.
53:06
And he uses the word atomic. What does atomic mean?
53:08
Atomic is the atomic unit in a system. That's the first thing.
53:11
The second thing is atomic like the atomic bomb power energy and atomic is also the central thing of what you do just like a good habit is a central point of your life and that is a brilliant explanation to me of what minimalism can do.
53:28
It's that that word in that title atomic habits you can pack so much meaning and that's the way that an engineer would think how do I give maximum efficiency to these words. Yeah, sure.
53:42
I minimalism has has it has has its strong points.
53:45
Um but potential tangent here, I don't know.
53:50
Um you mentioned the word engineer.
53:53
Yeah, that's a very very interesting word.
53:55
Um I feel like humankind, if I'm going to speak in general terms, you we we have more than one side.
54:03
We have, if you like, an analytical, scientific, mechanical side.
54:09
Then we have a spiritual, passionate, emotional, imaginative sides.
54:11
And they're related, but they are kind of kind of distinct and and and I I feel like we're in the midst of a very scientific, analytical, mechanical age.
54:24
And we touched on spelling earlier.
54:28
I think that's a good example.
54:30
Shakespeare could spell the same word two different ways in his own play and no one cared.
54:33
Now, to make a typo is considered this like severe fault.
54:38
You know, if if you're reading a book with a typo, you think it would actually make you doubt the quality of the book you're reading, which which is which is Yeah.
54:44
It's obviously silly as if being able to spell words correctly had any relationship um you know to to to the quality of of the writing.
54:55
And and I think you know again we're using this word kind of broadly.
55:01
I think an element of modern minimalism is I would almost call it pedentry.
55:06
You know, there's very pedantic almost trifling um aspect to it where I I don't want to go overboard my criticism here, but I mentioned a few examples today about, you know, I mentioned the whole thing about Spencer using medieval spelling, Carlile capitalizing random words and writing in this very very unusual way.
55:27
um that sort of risk-taking, that sort of incredibly Carl actually is a good example of a guy who wrote in a very spiritual very it feels like you're kind of reading the Bible when when you read the way he writes history.
55:41
Um to a point I I I think we're in this moment where and the reason this matters is because it's a shackle on creativity, right?
55:51
As we say, oh no, you've got to spell the words correctly.
55:52
You you know, it's got to be efficient. It's got to be relevant.
55:56
It's got to be convenient.
55:56
You got to be able to digest it.
55:57
You know, you said you can pack a lot onto small.
56:00
You you said it's beautiful because you can pack a lot onto very little.
56:03
Obviously, that is the beauty and and no one wants overwriting.
56:04
Overriding is is the worst thing you can do.
56:06
It's always been criticized.
56:07
You know, there's this great quote quintilian, the great Roman orator and rhetoric rather and teacher of rhetoric in the um 2,000 years ago.
56:15
He says the worst fault in all writing and speaking is circumlocution.
56:18
You know, circumlocution is essentially just using more words than you need.
56:23
He was saying that 20,000 years ago, that it's the worst thing you can do.
56:26
So, I'm not advocating for that, and I would never encourage anybody to to to essentially just needlessly puff up their language with um with words that that aren't adding anything.
56:39
And and but that's the point.
56:42
Which words do add things? Okay.
56:47
The problem is when where when when when someone's sat there writing and they maybe want to use some particularly vivid imagery, some colorful language, a particular new word we speaking about words, solitude or whatever.
57:00
Well, does that add anything?
57:02
And they think, well, no, but this is this is like this there's this core message that I really have to deliver to the audience and it's got to be absolutely 100% clear and efficient and effective.
57:12
When you apply that lens to your writing, it would be the same thing as applying that lens to say a building and then what happens is you strip away all the ornaments and you have a building which works and can sometimes be beautiful.
57:26
I'm a big fan of brutalism but very often what you get is something which is functional but ugly and unpleasant to be in and be around.
57:33
Okay, we've spoken a bunch wax poetic Mr.
57:39
Shihen about minimalism, maximalism.
57:42
What does all this mean for how we actually write?
57:44
Because I want to get back to our core question, which is there's a lot of lovely things about maximalism.
57:49
The personality, the expression, the distinctiveness, the subtlety.
57:53
There's a lot of great things about minimalism, the efficiency, how easy it is to understand.
57:59
What can we do to take the best things from both and put them into our writing?
58:05
I don't think anyone should necessarily try to be maximalist, so to speak, or try to be minimalist.
58:09
try to be minimalist. It's about writing and and and and and you know to to use you'll be able to say this far more eloquent eloquently than I can but but about find writing in a way that is authentic to yourself as in so when you're writing they're your words on that page they're not the words that
58:27
you're writ that that have come from somebody else from somebody you read you're writing and and and your thoughts are suddenly appearing in the real world that's the beauty of writing and you want it to be authentic you want it to be you and so this whole debate maximalism versus minimalism is problem in as much as in a in a minimalistic age. It shackles you and it prevents you
58:43
It shackles you and it prevents you from being able to write in that authentic way and also you know the worst sin of all it makes things a bit more boring. Okay. Huh. So no, it's true. Talk about that. Yeah, talk about that.
58:57
What do you mean that it makes it more boring?
58:59
It makes the world more boring when when it's minimalist because everyone writes the same way.
59:02
Yeah, maybe it's truthful. May maybe it's useful.
59:04
But if it's boring, man, like as in if there's one thing human beings cannot handle, it is being bored. It's true.
59:12
This is literally the one thing we're not conditioned to deal with.
59:16
And I think this is the law of nature as well.
59:17
If you look at any tree or plant or sorry, you look any tree or flower, every single leaf on that tree is different.
59:25
Every bit of bark is different.
59:25
You know, um you don't notice it, but you see it, if that makes sense.
59:30
And and variation is a law of the natural world.
59:34
And when everything looks identical, it's it's boring.
59:39
And we're like biologically unprepared for that.
59:41
And I think that's the greatest sin of minimalism at its worst.
59:45
Just to be clear, cuz at its best, it is gorgeous. It's beautiful. It's elegant. It's elegant. Yes. It's elegant. Exactly.
59:49
But so, so I just wanted to say that at the start that this is not about trying to be one rather than the other.
59:55
It's about being able to find a way that you want to ride them.
59:58
And my concern is that the current age inhibits people from that maximalist urge that's in them. Okay. So, so how to get there?
1:00:05
Well, as I said, the this is the almost the best piece of advice I I I I can ever give and I try and give it again and again is just read different stuff and stop reading stuff that everyone else is reading just cuz they're reading it because the what will obviously happen is that you will end up writing that way and thinking that way.
1:00:22
When I again I'm I'm you know well when I when I read William Morris for example and the way he was speaking about interior design like I I just I didn't know I didn't know you were allowed to write in that way about that subject.
1:00:38
I I just because if you've never read it before how would you have known?
1:00:42
So if somebody feels that that you know the the the this language this linguistic environment we're in this minimalistic this this kind of the the clickbait world just go and read something else and and it will open your mind.
1:00:57
It's like, you know, if if you if you never knew German existed and I just started speaking German to you, you'd be like, "Yeah, what what what the hell is this language you're speaking?"
1:01:05
And you you know, it's a that and it sounds extreme, but that happens when you go and read books from the past.
1:01:11
Like go into a secondhand bookshop, pick up some random old book off the shelf and open it and read it and and it will open your mind.
1:01:18
Essentially, you're just broadening the scope of things that you're drawing from.
1:01:21
So, so the the big the by far the most important are the things that that are going into your head.
1:01:26
read differently, read obscurely.
1:01:28
Don't read what everyone else is reading.
1:01:31
I mean, if it's relevant, maybe I don't want to sound like an extremist about this, but but um I certainly find it's helpful.
1:01:39
And I I I don't like as in, you know, I don't read the things that other people are writing on X.
1:01:42
I don't read the things that other people are writing in the same space that I'm in.
1:01:47
One thing that comes to mind for me is the yin-yang symbol. Why?
1:01:51
So, in the black side, there's a little white dot and in the white side there's a little black dot. Why is this important?
1:01:59
Because the black side is almost all black, but what do you look at? You look at the white.
1:02:02
And the white side is almost all white, but what do you look at? You look at the black.
1:02:06
And the point is that the opposite thing will be the minority of what you do.
1:02:11
So if you write maximalist pros, you can emphasize a point with extreme minimalism.
1:02:16
If you're writing minimalist point, you can emphasize what you're doing with extreme maximalism.
1:02:23
And you can have an essay that is 95% maximalism, but when you say you have a short paragraph, bunch of short sentences, you get right to the point, the reader is going to see that as a sign to say, "Focus on this."
1:02:38
And likewise with the opposite, you're writing all minimalism.
1:02:40
And then now there's one paragraph that's flowery, it's vibrant, it's buzzing, it's maximalist.
1:02:46
The reader is going to say, "Hey, this is important."
1:02:47
The point being that whatever is the opposite of what you do is your tool for emphasis. I like that.
1:02:54
That that's that's beautiful.
1:02:55
Like that that's yeah completely true.
1:02:59
Some other points as well.
1:03:01
So some other just very very sort of semi I don't know if this sounds odd but some very specific points of advice.
1:03:06
So other so read reading obscure and also reading reading old and reading obscure just to show you what's possible.
1:03:11
Second thing um turn off the spell checker and don't use Grammarly.
1:03:16
just just just forget that you need to worry about spelling or syntax or grammar.
1:03:21
Ju just just just swim in the words and and and let them be your guide.
1:03:25
Um that's what I would advise people to do.
1:03:27
Third thing as well, learn more words.
1:03:30
And I don't mean flick through a thesaurus and be like, "Oh, that sounds pretty."
1:03:34
I mean I mean get to know what words mean because there are so many of them.
1:03:38
and and and and when you when you when you find words that they just, you know, these maybe slightly unusual words that explain a particular feeling or thought or idea in a way that another simpler, more generic word wouldn't be able to.
1:03:52
Um, that's a beautiful thing and and it and it it can only enrich your writing. Is there a cost?
1:03:56
Maybe because it means a reader might not understand that word, okay, and they have to go and look it up. Fine.
1:04:02
But but in some sense you got to push back against this tidal wave of convenience because what it's doing is is is is kind of atrophying our ability to to to it's atrophying the human imagination.
1:04:17
So so so yeah learn more words. Let me build on that. Sure.
1:04:19
Not just learning more words but learning the etmologies of words.
1:04:24
In etmology in the construction of words there's ideas that are just waiting to be found.
1:04:30
Like people always ask me and I know that this sounds heady and I do not mean this in a heady way at all because what is the one of the most common questions people ask me, hey, how do how do you find ideas?
1:04:39
Where do I find better ideas?
1:04:41
And I'm telling you, I know that etmology sounds like your fourth grade English teacher talking to you and you're eye rolling.
1:04:47
You're like, "Oh my goodness."
1:04:48
Let me give you an example. The word passion.
1:04:50
When you think of the word passion, what do you think? Oh, I'm so passionate. Woo! This is so exciting.
1:04:56
You know, find your passion.
1:04:58
this is going to be the thing that I think is fantastic. Okay.
1:04:59
So talking to a friend and and he said, "Hey, do do you know where the word passion comes from?"
1:05:07
And I'm like, "No, the word passion comes from suffering."
1:05:13
To suffer, the passion of the Christ indeed passion is related to suffering.
1:05:16
So now rather than thinking of passion as this very cheery thing, find your passion.
1:05:23
Now you can start thinking of that as what is the thing in my career, the thing in my life that I'm passionate about?
1:05:29
What is so important to me that I'm willing to suffer for it?
1:05:30
And once you start seeing that, that whole piece, I could turn that into an essay.
1:05:38
That whole piece was lying in the etmology of a word that I had used a thousand times. Yeah. Yeah.
1:05:43
And you used it unthinkingly.
1:05:44
I'm passionate about, you know, I'm passionate about, you know, whatever the hell it is.
1:05:49
whatever the hell it is. And it's just, you know, I'm passionate about fishing and And and it's and it's you know what you mean is you really really enjoy it but you don't mean it doesn't have yes in a way this is almost the perfect uh can we say synctic key here I might
1:06:04
be using the word wrong this might be the perfect synctic key for what we mean by maximalism I think what's a synctic um a synctic key is is an element of a thing which you use to describe the whole thing so so so when people say number 10 in this country they mean the government because it's number 10 Downing street. Huh. So number 10 is a Huh.
1:06:22
So number 10 is a synctic key for for the government.
1:06:24
Um but passion when we talk about maximalism, this is what we mean.
1:06:29
It's not this the the flowery fancy language.
1:06:34
It it it's not being it it's entering into the full richness that does exist there and and and and and using using it to its fullest rather than always going with the most basic, most simple, most convenient option.
1:06:45
is rising to a slightly different level and and and and expanding in in into I mean, yeah, this perfect passion.
1:06:52
This isn't something that you ever hear people talking about.
1:06:55
I'm just going to go learn new words.
1:06:57
And you hear something like that and that's a a word is describing.
1:07:03
It's sort of like colors, right?
1:07:03
Like there's colors between red and orange.
1:07:08
But when people talk about the rainbow, they say it goes red, orange, yellow, green, right?
1:07:14
But there's actually more within that.
1:07:16
And to learn a new word is to understand what's in between these very rigid boundaries.
1:07:21
So it lets you see the world in higher resolution and understand yourself in higher resolution.
1:07:28
You can essentially be more I mean this is just a fabulous contradiction that maximalism can be more precise than minimalism.
1:07:36
Let's say in in this example like yeah learn more word.
1:07:39
I mean one of my favorite words is palimpest.
1:07:40
You know what the palmsest means? No.
1:07:43
So a palumst is a manuscript.
1:07:43
So imagine like these were back in the days when like paper or vellum as it was was very valuable.
1:07:50
So so you wouldn't just chug the stuff out.
1:07:51
Palumst is a manuscript which has been something written on it.
1:07:56
It's been scribbed off or erased and then written over. That's a palmst.
1:07:59
And I think I think it's a beautiful way to describe so many things.
1:08:02
I often describe buildings as palms when you can see that they've been built and they've been remodeled and refurbished.
1:08:07
I often sometimes describe people as palms, you know, when the personality has changed.
1:08:11
So, so there's a word there with a kind of a cool specific meaning.
1:08:14
I'm using in a metaphorical way, but like if I didn't have that word, I would actually have to use a lot I would have to use many more words in order to explain what I mean.
1:08:22
I can just say, you know, Westminster Abbey is a palmest, right? Okay.
1:08:25
If you know what the word means, then you just know immediately. Wow.
1:08:29
Okay, that's a great way to say it.
1:08:30
Instead, I say, well, Westminster Abbey is is a building of of many buildings.
1:08:34
It has been rebuilt and modified many times.
1:08:36
Or, you know, it's awkward. It's clumsy. I'm using simple words.
1:08:41
Palum obsessed is not a word that everyone will understand, but it gets to the point far more quicker and far more precisely.
1:08:47
Maybe the reader has to go and look at a dictionary, but then they'll know the word. What am I talking about?
1:08:49
Well, I think I think it's it something I've been trying to drive out without being able to say the the whole time I've been talking.
1:08:57
It's like and langu language is there waiting for you to go and just get, you know, grab it by the neck and and it's like clay and you can just mold it.
1:09:06
You can pick up that piece of clay and and I feel like we we think we've been we've been given a we're being given a Lego box, right?
1:09:11
Lego the pieces come in set sizes and you can build something and and there's an instruction manual and you have to build it in that way, right?
1:09:19
And and and that can work, but it can also be so restrictive.
1:09:23
We're talking about vibrancy, how to get it back.
1:09:26
Got to remember that language is like clay and you Shakespeare making up new words.
1:09:30
new words. And I think I feel like we're in this minimalist age will be described as like a Lego box era of writing where where when to get that vibrancy to to get that energy that that authenticness that subtlety that that without you talking about that maybe people used to
1:09:46
write in that way maybe not got to think of language like clay not as something which is fixed but as something which can change you can just break the rules of syntax or grammar or spelling if you want to as long as you make it work you know the rule of cool I suppose what's the rule of Cool. Well, you know, as in
1:10:00
Well, you know, as in like, you know, when you when you're doing something bold or unusual or shocking, if it looks good, it works.
1:10:10
Like like all the other all the other, you know, is in like imagine you did a tweet tomorrow and you decided to capitalize certain words.
1:10:19
Um that wouldn't normally be capitalized in English.
1:10:20
Like I don't know if it looks cool, then it works and no one questions it and they're like, "Yeah, I'm on board with this." Languages clay.
1:10:28
We need to learn to we we shouldn't forget that. Thanks, man. That was fun. Good to see you. That's a wrap. Pleasure. Pleasure.
1:10:38
Winston Church Hill wasn't just the prime minister of the United Kingdom.
1:10:42
That's what people know him for.
1:10:42
But he was also a prolific writer.
1:10:43
He wrote a novel, two biographies, memoirs, and of course, as prime minister, speeches.
1:10:50
He'd spend roughly an hour working on them for every minute that he spoke.
1:10:52
So if he spoke for 8 minutes, he'd spend 8 hours in prep.
1:10:56
And yes, I know he's controversial, but man, there's a lot to learn from his writing.
1:11:00
So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to play you a short clip from a speech that he gave in 1940, and then we're going to break it down together.
1:11:10
We shall fight on beaches.
1:11:10
We shall fight on the landing grounds.
1:11:12
We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.
1:11:18
We shall fight in the hills.
1:11:20
We shall never surrender.
1:11:24
So, let's break this down.
1:11:24
Like a good battle plan, the structure of Church Hill's writing here is simple and strategic.
1:11:29
A commander-in-chief can get their squadron, their unit on the same page with repetition.
1:11:33
And that's what Church Hill is doing here.
1:11:35
There's no mistaking the core themes here. What is he doing?
1:11:38
He's using the word fight four different times.
1:11:41
And then he talks about how the British military will fight in five different places.
1:11:47
They're going to fight on the beaches.
1:11:48
They're going to fight on the landing grounds in the fields and the streets in the hills.
1:11:52
So you see all the buildup there, but the entire paragraph is building up to these words right here.
1:12:02
We shall never surrender.
1:12:05
That is the main point at the end.
1:12:08
That's the climax that everything builds up to.
1:12:10
Churchill also uses style to get his point across, too.
1:12:13
Writers these days, you sit in your fifth grade English class and you'll be told to only keep what's necessary.
1:12:18
Cliff the fluff, get rid of the excess.
1:12:20
But Church Hill does the opposite here.
1:12:22
You'll notice that rhetorically the volume and the diversity of places mentioned, it's actually more important for him than the literal meaning of each place.
1:12:31
And Church Hill, he could have just added emphasis by adlibing a bunch more places with the word fight.
1:12:38
So you'll see here, he's got fight, fight, fight, fight. He's got all this fight.
1:12:42
But you know what he could do?
1:12:43
He could just add a whole row worth of stuff.
1:12:45
We shall fight in the cities.
1:12:48
We shall fight in the skies.
1:12:50
We shall fight in the forest.
1:12:50
We shall fight in the little Italian sandwich shops. I'm just kidding, right?
1:12:56
But he could have just added stuff. And look at this.
1:12:58
The order of the locations is immaterial.
1:13:00
So he could take fight in the skies and he could make beaches down here, streets. We'll move it up here.
1:13:07
Then we'll take this and we'll go over here.
1:13:09
We're sort of like shuffling things around. And this all works. Here's what matters.
1:13:13
All you need is right at the end.
1:13:16
You just need we shall never surrender.
1:13:18
This just needs to come at the end.
1:13:20
And if it does, the whole thing works. Now, why is this?
1:13:22
It's because speech writing is different from the kind of writing that you usually get on paper.
1:13:29
It's this series of phrases, these little phrases that are serving up to the punch line at the end, right?
1:13:36
They're just building, building, building into we shall never surrender.
1:13:40
And you could arrange any of those little phrases.
1:13:42
You could take the first one, make it the seventh, you know, rearrange them however you wanted in the paragraph, it would still accomplish its purpose.
1:13:48
A sense of timing is important, though.
1:13:51
Adding all these little buildup phrases right here, what are they doing?
1:13:54
They're increasing suspense right up until the point that you start losing people's interest.
1:13:58
And the more engaged your audience is, like when you're speechw writing, the more engaged your audience is, the more of these little buildup phrases you can add.
1:14:06
So yeah, you could say the majority of what Church Hill is saying here is fluff.
1:14:10
He could have taken all this and compressed it into one thing. It looked like this.
1:14:18
We shall fight everywhere and we shall never surrender.
1:14:22
Eight words could have had the same meaning, but that wouldn't have been memorable.
1:14:26
We wouldn't be talking about it almost a century later.
1:14:30
Instead, Churchill took 31 words and all of these words right here, they raised the stakes of what he's saying.
1:14:34
They're giving his speech an element of suspense right when he wants it the most.
1:14:39
And this drum beat of repetition, we shall fight. We shall fight. We shall fight. We shall fight.
1:14:44
It's paving the way for his eventual climax.
1:14:47
All of this is paving the way for what comes at the end.
1:14:51
We shall never surrender. Well, that was fun.
1:14:56
Who knew that arts and crafts class would come in so clutch, huh?
1:15:00
Well, look, I publish one of these writing examples every single week on writingexamples. com.
1:15:07
And if you go to the site, you enter your email right at the top of the page.