Your needs, my compassion

I have to admit, I haven’t been considering your needs.

That’s something writers are supposed to do, no?

Aristotle even dedicated one of the points on his Rhetorical Triangle to that very thing.

Pathos.

Hell, I even have the damn thing tattooed on my hand to remind me.

I mean, Pathos isn’t really about your “needs.” 

It’s more about how you feel or experience a message.

In fact, the more I think about it, in the context of the rhetorical triangle, your “needs” are probably more accurately represented on one of “relationship” lines joining two points.

Regardless, I’m not sure if I want to consider your needs.

I’m not even sure you want me to.

That’s not really my thing.

Other than your “need” to be entertained, of course.

I’m considering MY needs though.

• Entertainment

• Pleasure

• Exploration

• Inquiry

• Invention.

That’s why I’m doing this.

That’s probably why you’re reading.

There’s something compelling about someone who seems to be doing what they want to do — even when people are watching.

When I sat down to write this email — even after turning on paid subscriptions yesterday — I’m not trying to “deliver value.” (consider your needs)

That sounds like a lot of pressure I don’t want or need.

Value may, in fact, be delivered — but I do my best to make sure that isn’t the reason I sit down to write.

There’s another concept from the world of rhetoric — “exigence” — it describes the urgent reason (or need) for you to say what you’re saying, to do what you’re doing.

I’ll say more about this another day as it’s important as all fuck.

But today, right now, my exigence is most certainly not to “deliver (or create) value.”

Still, it must be happening right now though, yeah?

You must find this shit valuable or you’d have already scrolled down and clicked Unsubscribe.

Weird.

I must be more compassionate than we thought.

PS - When the writing isn’t coming easy for me on any given day, my go-to strategy is to start breaking it down to one sentence per line/paragraph. It helps. Making multi-sentence paragraphs wasn’t working today. Except this one.