I Write better than I Speak
I am more confident as a writer than a speaker.
And it’s not because writing allows more time to choose the perfect words and phrasing while in the case of speaking there’s no taking it back once you’ve said it.
The reason that speaking, for me, is harder in many ways than writing is that it focuses more on performance rather than quality content.
If you have good ideas and can express it in simplest words, you’ll be perceived as a good writer.
With speaking it’s the opposite — having good ideas is an alarmingly small component of being a good speaker. Most good speakers (like Trump 😬) have very little to say in terms of quality content. At the end of a long speech you realize he hadn’t said very much.
This brings us to entertainment versus expression.
Some speakers and writers (marginal quality content producers) are popular solely because they are likable and entertain, or infuriate and inflame. This is when all mediums of art fail, including writing.
Having said that, thinking and speaking have a much older relationship than thinking and writing. Life is primarily speaking, not writing (although most of our internet communication is text based).
Quality speakers study their audience and put together content that addresses their interests, much like quality writers. They rarely present pre-written talks — they start with no more than an outline of what they want to say and fill in the blanks on stage.
But, I do prefer writing. I become a better writer every time I speak, and become a better speaker every time I write.
