Resist Definition Entirely. I'm Not So Sure We Even Have A Choice
I recently reread one of my favorite blog posts — Nadia Asparouhova’s always excellent Tyranny of Ideas (May 2019).
In Tyranny of Ideas, Asparouhova cautions creators to Resist Definition Entirely lest they be enslaved by their ideas. After asking — “how creators preserve optionality, maintain separation between themselves and their ideas, and avoid being consumed by demand" — she offers the following clear thinking approach — “One approach is to resist definition entirely, which seems like the obvious answer, but is hard to actually pull off well, because it requires engaging in constant battle against the many ideas that will inevitably swarm you.“
Even with Asparouhova's proviso that this "is hard to actually pull off well," I loved this idea when I first read it; I still love it today.
Revisiting the Blogosphere
I recently revisited the blogosphere, that glorious world of free expression.
I was surprised to find the welcome mat for aspiring and returning bloggers and creators littered, almost beyond recognition, by a tidal wave of help pieces that don't offer much help, preachy how-to videos optimized more for audience-building than teaching, and a maze-like spider web of affiliate marketing opportunism that would spin the heads of even the most seasoned netizens.
Seeing this, I quickly realized that there's a sizable business opportunity for someone to create or curate genuinely helpful how-to content for a new generation of bloggers and content creators, but that's a story for a different piece. For now, suffice it say, the creator space is a rats nest of confusion and overwhelm with opinion content on every conceivable topic all over the map.
Among this wayward cacophony of ideas and opinions a single piece of advice has stood the test of time, and from all indications, hardened into strict content creation coda — choose a topic, specify a niche, and stay in your lane no matter what. The underlying rationale for this advice — understandable and true both then and now — is the overwhelming presence of the search algorithms which still lord over the internet, nearly unilaterally deciding which content is seen, by whom, and how often.
This advice, at first glance, appears valid and rational. However, I remembered that it struck me as counterintuitive and problematic years ago and it still does today, which is to say, that while I understand it, I don't necessarily agree with it. I hesitate to put words in Asparouhova's mouth, but neither, it appears, does she.
What are aspiring and veteran content creators to do?
The answer, I believe, comes from another gang of idea gremlins, advice traders, and meme-sters in the digital sphere who are constantly encouraging us to think for ourselves, run against the tide, and to not fear turning left when everyone else is turning right.
My response to the question posed just above is inspired by this more contrarian and independently minded do you vibe.
#1
In the opening of this piece, I referred to Asparouhova's sober and clear-thinking ideas. They are also essential and necessary and important. In my own deliberations for this blog it occurred to me that I no more wanted to write a niche-topic blog any more than I can or would want to live a niche-topic life. I confess to the very real possibility of confirmation bias here, but in this one case for sure, it doesn't much matter to me. Simply, I have no interest, and even less ability, to write and think in a way that constrains and boxes out ideas as they flow to me.
#2
Expression, and by extension, life — is capricious, messy, and far beyond singular. The same can be said for the byproducts of expression. Words, sentences, and paragraphs do require structure, but when corralled and constrained into order, they don’t work nearly as well or emit nearly as much emotive or expressive power.
#3
The simple truth is that I'm not sure I have much of a choice and neither do you. Whether the content creator opinion gods like it or not, whether I myself like it or not, my brain doesn't operate or cooperate as a single-lane entity. It's not designed that way. PS: neither is yours.
I completely agree with Asparouhova — Resist Definition Entirely. As I've said, I’m pretty sure we don’t have a choice. Instead, we should freely embrace our freely thinking and freely expressing, free minds, freely.