idk about the whole 'i'd have written a shorter letter if I'd had more time' thing
why? long letters rule
I see this quote all the time. “If I had more time, I’da written you a shorter letter.’
Lincoln said it. Twain. I’m sure Maya Angelou whispered it once to Richard M. Feynman.
I googled it and it looks like TV actor / internet daddy Pedro Pascal said it first.
Regardless, I don’t love it. It rubs me wrong. It rubs me just about as wrong as the phrase ‘rubs me wrong.’ Yuck on all fronts. It ‘rubs’ you? You’re not a baby back rib, go to hell.
Why is brevity better?
If I’d had more time, I’d write a letter that was twice as long cuz pal, I got a lot to say and sure I value your time blah blah but also maybe you wanna spend some of your time reading my letter and not, idk, organizing your emails into folders?
Brevity might be A soul of wit but it isn’t the only one.
I remember in middle school I went to some jewish youth group event. it was weird as all hell but i met a girl. i think her name was margot. I feel like we talked in person for ten minutes or maybe an hour. laughs were had, email addresses were exchanged.
we started writing emails to each other.
long emails.
I’m talking ten paragraph minimum. it wasn’t by design exactly, it just sort of happened, riding that blurry line between i like this person as a friend and i love this person i want to marry them. at least that’s how it felt for me, i have no idea what she was thinking or feeling and i don’t think i was ever brave enough to ask.
the point is those emails were LONG. and so fun to write and receive and back again. i can remember my heart doing a frog’s ribbit every time a new email came through. i’d read it and pen a long ass response that made sure to respond to each and every point from her email while adding another 10 or 20 of my own.
The beauty of these emails i think was their length - the time it took to write them and the time it took to read them too.
we were kids, sure, so there was more time on ‘our hands’ which is really my point. we’re obsessed with writing short notes because they’re more productive. if i sent you a 2 sentence email that’s chock full o’ whatever I’m trying to say instead of a longwinded five paragraph rant, well I’ve then saved you time! And you know what they say, time is money, so now you can go buy a house.
But time isn’t money and it isn’t real neither. It’s a fiction, like Robinson Crusoe or half the books in the library.
Now I’m not saying ramble for the sake of it. That’s called a ‘rant’ and it usually sucks but that’s because when someone is ranting, they’re often not trying to actually communicate anything to another person. They’re talking to themselves or their dead dad or jesus with the good hair. But not the person to whom they’re speaking.
Point is: shorter isn’t by definition a priori better.
The length of a feeling expressed is the length it oughta be. So is an essay or a letter or a movie or a conversation. “We talked for hours,” new lovers will say, not “we had a very quick and impactful conversation it was so nice she respected my time so much that she left after five minutes I’m in love.”
Come on.
TLDR my nuts.
“well then why isn’t this essay super long then”
I’ll tell ya why because I gotta do a poo before wilder wakes up that’s why. Otherwise I’d keep writing until this was sixty pages long without footnotes. Things oughta be what they are, not shorter just because. My most widely shared essay - Beautiful Disasters - is also my longest.
A lot of my short pieces suck.
The best selling books in history - the bible pt 1 and 2 - are long as hell. I’da loved to be the agent on that sale am I right folks? 5% of 5 billion at $15 a pop that’s a cool $3.75 billion!!!!
So would you rather write shorter letters and have more time to organize your task list or write long and become a billionaire?
Idk about you but I’m going with the ladder.
Introducing: The Bible pt 3 - all your fav characters are BACK and better than ever. Jonah the whale finds out he wasn’t invited to the Ark. Jesus does time travel and has to not mess up the Adam and Eve storyline or risk ruining the universe forever.
God does not rest on the 7th day and just starts doing wacky shit like making lazer tag facilities as one of the primary elements of life - water, air, fire, and lazer tag facilities.
Ok wait the more I write this the more I realize it’s actually a good idea don’t steal it I’m gonna be rich.
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Rome wasn’t built in a day and your support helps keep me alive as a writer so idk think about it ur call w/e no worries if not etc.
Comments
Whaddya think on this one, agree or disagree?
Are you a ‘i write long letters/emails’ person? Say more on that.
when is faster not better don’t say sex what are you fifteen
any pitches for bible pt 3 storylines???
tgif?
“The length of a feeling expressed is the length it oughta be.” This!
My family gives me a hard time when I tell a story. They have beginnings, middles, and ends. If I need to communicate something that doesn’t need full exposition (“Hey, supper’s ready!) I am fully capable. I coach high school baseball ... have to be concise. Recognizing when to be concise matters. But I’d much rather hear and tell longer stories ... or ... stories as short or long as they need to be.
Bible pt 3? Jesus in NYC seems a little too obvious and Jesus goes to a small town in the south risks being a little too Lifetime Christmas in July. Maybe ... Jesus returns as a down on his luck jazz bandleader in New Orleans ... Jesus on piano ... Peter on trumpet ... Paul on bass ... Judas on drums ... Mary Magdalene on vocals ... and so on ... trying to make it big one last time ... in the face of multiple -isms and the crooked politician trying to close the nearby orphanage ... and a complicated relationship between pianist and singer ... a kind of Blues Brothers meets the Fabulous Baker Boys.
Isn't it more a lament for weak editing? Saying what you mean to say, and as much as you want, but with fewer words? I do find lots of Substack contributions wordy. Having more time to cut down on the word count would make writing tighter, cleaner and SHORTER. I'm all for that.