My Corner of the Void

Dispatch 001

From the Third Floor

Until this week, the only bone I’d ever fractured was my skull. I was too young to remember that incident, but I know the story was far less embarrassing than the break I suffered a few days ago.

“Nine out of ten” often represents pretty good odds, but when it comes to toes passing through a doorway, it falls short. Crashing to the floor, I stared aghast at the new shape of my left foot.

Determined a small fracture and some bruising wouldn’t derail my weekend, I disregarded the medical advice I paid to receive and attempted to “power through.” This only further enflamed the issue and I awoke the next day humbled by how much pain one small toe can bring.

Surrendering to the healing process, I find myself now confined to my third floor (walk up) apartment—horizontal, foot elevated. What better time to finally focus on starting a newsletter?

Welcome to From the Third Floor.

When asked about my hobbies and passions, I’m quick to identify myself as a writer. I’m obsessed with writing, yet my portfolio of recent work falls short. I’m a writer who doesn’t write—and that’s preposterous because I love words.

My bedside table is stacked 14 stories high with books about books: a collection that includes works on writing philosophy, editorial design, linguistics and the history of language, and commentaries on variations in communication culture around the globe.

I came across an online post asking readers what they feel “excessively curious about to a degree that would bore most other people.” For me, it’s communication—the way we select and order our language to articulate a message. It’s not just what we say but how we decide to say it based on our vocabulary, habits, world views, geographic location, sociacultural lens, and all the other contributing factors of influence that make us us.

Linguists tout English as one of the world’s most expressive languages, stemming from Germanic roots with heavy contributions from Latin, French, and Scandinavian languages. This quilt of influences gives us a rich library of synonyms, homonyms, and complex words like run and set, which can be defined in dozens (more accurately, hundreds) of ways.

I tried to search how many words make up our language. One site suggested 170,000 words have been defined in Oxford’s English dictionary, while another claimed it was 600,000. Another argued there were over 1,000,000. Regardless of the count, we have an unlimited number of ways to arrange our words, offering freedom and flexibility to the speaker to choose the order that feels most authentically suited to them in regard to their preference, personality, and desired impact. How thrilling!

Despite all this, most of my writing doesn’t make it out of the Notes app. Maybe it’s exhaustion or burnout between my various freelance projects, contracts, and journalistic endeavors—including a full-time position and now grad school—but without a formal “assignment,” I find myself reluctant to hit publish.

We’re surrounded by a haze of content overload. Writing online can feel like shouting into the void; perhaps that’s all it is. And if that’s the case, then I suppose this is my corner of the void.

What makes writing so great is the uniqueness of each voice. No utterance perfectly matches another, each with its own angle and range. It’s this essential element of voice and perspective that makes our language an art. With the steady increase of computer-generated writing being trained to mimic natural language, a distinctly human touch is more valuable than ever.

So whether shouts or murmurs, may the void devour what contributions I have to make. After all, a writer who doesn’t write is no writer at all.

What I’m Reading This Week:

1. 100 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think, Brianna Wiest
2. Letters to a Young Writer, Colum McCann
3. Mediterraneo, Monocle

Excerpts, Notes & Highlights

1. The New Old Age, David Brooks, The Atlantic

“…A well-formed life is governed by two different logics. The first is the straightforward, utilitarian logic that guides us through our careers… But there is a second and deeper logic to life, gift logic, which guides us as we form important relationships, serve those around us, and cultivate our full humanity. This is a logic of contribution, not acquisition; surrender, not domination. It's a moral logic, not an instrumental one, and it's full of paradox: You have to give to receive. You have to lose yourself to find yourself. You have to surrender to something outside yourself to gain strength within yourself. If career logic helps you conquer the world, gift logic helps you serve it. […] A well-lived life, at any stage, is lived within the tension between these two logics.”