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If you think “fully formed” is possible, you’ll already have clear ideas about who can help you “finish” it. You’ll try to put out something that already includes the thoughts of anyone worth listening to, in your opinion. So post-pub comments can be more easily dismissed.
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Basically you form a gang of Straussian idea murderers and kill an idea to stuff and put on display. Writing as a kind of taxidermy. I don’t blame him. In his kind of hotspot extreme defensive writing is perhaps justified. But there’s a cost to it.
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To be clear — if any young writers are reading this, PG’s approach is the traditional one the entire literary-industrial complex expects in one form or the other. He’s also way richer and read by vastly more people than me. So you should probably listen to him, not me.
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Though I’m sometimes upset by the vastly lower level of hostility I get, I’d never try to tell people how to disagree. At best I might impose a code of honor on myself. If you’re going to fight, fight. If you’re going to walk away, walk away. Open play rules of engagement only.
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Thing is, if you pre-empt discourse by “finishing” ideas and then imposing a ceremonial set of rules on people, you gate out most of the toxicity, but you also gate out almost all possibility of discovering ways in which your ideas might not be fully formed.
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He’s written a bunch of other things about writing. Somebody should compile a list. If you’re starting out writing, you should read everything he’s written on writing. You’ll either get good at his style of writing, or discover your own via visceral reaction to it.
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It’s okay I guess. Not much to either agree or disagree with in it. Feels like he’s processing strong feelings about English-lit school essays more than getting at anything. The essay kinda fails it’s own test of surprise and interestingness.
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Replying to @vgr
What do you think of paulgraham.com/essay.html?
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Replying to
I liked that essay, found it compelling, and thought it flowed well. The only thing I didn't like is that he tries to usurp the superset definition of essay with his own private subset definition without an adequate (persuasive) proof. Not all essays need to be entertaining.
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Without knowing either of your histories, guessing you were always good writer and found it easy while he once struggled and made up for it with hard work. You can go nomakeup nofilter on your IG but he needs contouring and good lighting to get likes. Both have beauty and value.
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Hmm. He doesn't use enough () to be Lisp guy...j/k. :) I need to think about this comparison more... I've helped many very smart friends edit writing/presentations and often find that they are good writers but have hangups. That's how PG reads to me but I could be totally wrong.
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