The Value of Unpublished Words

The greatest remedy for anger is delay.

WIIFM

Have you mapped your Universe? Do you know why such a map is important? Do you understand that the map is not the Universe? Read on to find answers for where to start.

Ages ago I read somewhere on the Internet (so you know it has to be true) that Abraham Lincoln would write letters and never send them. These were letters of a particular sort.

President Lincoln had a lot to be angry about, but he had the wisdom to know that angry outbursts did little to resolve issues and much to make them worse. After his death, historians found a trove of letters Lincoln wrote but never signed or sent them. In these letters he vented the anger and frustration he felt against members of his cabinet or generals in the Union army. After the passage of time - hours or days - he could deal with the matter at hand with a calmer and clearer mind. The action of writing down his thoughts as if addressing the source of his aggravation was the complete purpose. Actually sending the message would be counter to the purpose.

I have a similar practice. Where President Lincoln used a pen and paper before tucking his incomplete thoughts into his desk drawer, I use a keyboard and computer to tuck my incomplete thoughts into Obsidian.

This is the 303rd post to The Stoic Agilist. There are no articles in the Substack drafts bucket. Nor will there ever be. This is part of a practice I learned after witnessing numerous unforced errors (most minor, some career ending) committed by co-workers over the years.

I keep all my written drafts and scraps off-line, in a writer's version of a development environment. The release process involves an intentionally manual effort to copy articles I feel are ready for publication from the isolated system to a public platform. No chance for an accidental posting of something not ready or not intended for a wider audience. The process is deliberately un-streamlined. Air-gapped, as it were, from technology's gremlins. Alas, President Lincoln's desk drawer is more trustworthy than any SaaS platform available on the InterTubes.

As of post #303, Obsidian shows close to 800 draft articles and over 1,000 related fragments. Every article I write, including drafts, has a "scratch pad" section where I keep nascent ideas for the article, awkward phrasings, and more than a few venomous rants and sharp snarks. There are another 5,000+ supporting references ranging from one line quotes to research articles. All these bits and pieces are interconnected across the interstitial space by one to five tags. The graph of how all this is connected in what I affectionately call The Universe looks like this...

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The corner of The Universe occupied by published articles looks like this...

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President Lincoln shared this self-awareness regarding the relationship between emotions, good judgement, and consequences with Marcus Aurelius.

When you think you've been injured, apply this rule: If the community isn’t injured by it, neither am I. And if it is, anger is not the answer. Show the offender where he went wrong. (Meditations, 5.22)

If someone asked you how to write your name, would you clench your teeth and spit out the letters one by one? If he lost his temper, would you lose yours as well? Or would you just spell out the individual letters?

Remember—your responsibilities can be broken down into individual parts as well. Concentrate on those, and finish the job methodically—without getting stirred up or meeting anger with anger. (Meditations, 6.26)

The skillful use of Hanlon's Razor will often reveal a need for patient instruction rather than vengeful destruction. Of course, the principles behind the cognitive disciple of President Lincoln and Marcus Aurelius applies to the full spectrum of strong emotions - anger, desire, envy, jealousy, lust, fear, rage, etc. The list is long.

I've said or written many times that I write in order to better understand the world around me. I write to also better understand myself. The drafts safely tucked into The Universe range across a wide spectrum of emotions. (There's a lot of boring crap in there, too.) Going back to them reveals gaps and flaws that at the time of writing weren't apparent. Indeed, many of these thoughts seemed complete and ready for launch when first scribbled. Hence the deliberately cumbersome process for publication. Even then, I still don't get it right. I'm a work in progress.

There is an unexpected beauty in this effort. For all the crazy tangling revealed in my little Universe, I now know it's a tangled mess. Even so, the more I understand the easier it becomes to navigate my way around and leverage legitimate strengths, identify limiting weaknesses, tune my beliefs, and immunize myself from the many virulent beliefs spreading in the world today. This also deepens the understanding that everyone has some sort of internal Universe, each one different from the next. However, most people haven't a clue of what's in their Universe much less how to navigate it. As a consequence, they are more or less slaves to their cognitive biases and impulses, unable to recognize the valuable differences in others, and unwitting co-conspirators with those who seek to control their behaviors.

Do you know your Universe? Begin an ongoing dialog with yourself and free your self.

"I write this not for the many, but for you; each of us is enough of an audience for the other." - Attributed to Epicurus, Moral letters to Lucilius, Seneca, 7.10

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If you have any questions, need anything clarified, or have something else on your mind, please send a DM or email me directly.

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Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash