How To Show Humanity: Lessons from Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
It was a random Tuesday noon, and I was alone, sobbing in my apartment.
The book I was reading? Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. The book was a collection of heartfelt instructions and insights about writing.
But it’s so much more than that.
It’s difficult to describe why it made me so emotional. I felt like it was talking to me, specifically. Like this woman, whom I have never known and never will, sat down right beside me and started an especially engaging monologue that relates to my life. It was in the way they were presented, the way her writing made me feel seen.
Among all of the lessons in this book, what struck me the most was just how human she sounded, how alive. I thought, “I want this for myself.”
The Humanity in Bird by Bird
Because of my interest in self-improvement, all the books I’ve read recently have flowed down that same river. Unfortunately, they all kind of sounded the same: great people discussing great ideas to make you better.
There’s nothing bad about that, they’re good ideas. But there’s something about the self-help format that all blurs the same after some time. Like appreciating carefully sculpted marble pieces, as different from each other as humans are, but all shining with similar buff.
I loved a lot of those books. But Anne — for all her rightly-accummulated influence and authority — sounds like a friend. A funny, self-deprecating, cynical-sounding friend, with her humorous rambles and flashes of insights so bright it startles.
The real power of this, I think, is in its ability to evoke emotion. Emotion is what makes us human, and so when we read truly emotional writing, it reaffirms this part of ourselves. It says, “You feel, you exist.”
And so, I wanted to take down brief notes on how Anne Lamott writes, especially in how she reflects herself.
Not that it’s a comprehensive list (I’m not that smart, unfortunately), but just to write down my observations so I can use them later on. And maybe you can, too. Here they are.
Overload with stories
We hear a lot from online writing gurus and influencers to use stories to and humanize ground our ideas, it’s a time-tested rule.
She takes this to a whole new level.
You know how that one friend tells stories ramblingly, weaving stories upon stories in a giant tangle that somehow works?
The book reads like that. Multiple trains of thought, all at once, and yet they never collide. All those trains work together, and you are a passenger that rides and disembarks right on time, like those famous Japanese machines, arriving in your destination fascinated at the utterly smooth transit.
Don’t be afraid to ramble
I don’t know about you, but one of the first “rules” of writing I’ve picked up is to be as concise as possible. Unnecessary words are evil, they will make your audience gag in disgust.
Of course, this is for a specific kind of writing.
I’ve only ever written non-fiction, and the non-fiction for the bright screens and short attention spans of the internet world, so breaking this rule didn’t even occur to me. And to be fair, if you’re reading a blog about tropical aquarium fishes, long paragraphs will make your head hurt.
But Anne’s paragraphs ramble on sometimes, and you feel like a child being led through a labyrinthine maze. Somewhere along the way, you glimpse the meaning of life or something, so when you arrive at the other end, you arrive fascinated, having enjoyed the journey utterly. It’s so entertaining, and so human.
Be highly opinionated
Anne has an opinion on everything, but she delivers it in a way that makes you eager for it.
So many people sneer when they voice an opinion. It comes with the implication that their thoughts are better than yours. We’ve all seen the aggressive influencers.
Worse, we all know someone like that. When there’s an issue — war, corruption, moral degradation, anything — you go, “I wonder what HE thinks about this.” Then roll your eyes (if they are not there) so much that it’s difficult to roll them back from inside your skull, and proceed to not listen at all (if they are there).
But, once again, not Anne.
She’s the kind of person that, whenever something interesting comes up, you look at her expectantly like a child waiting for her parent to give her a morsel of candy.
She draws clear battle lines, she knows where she stands. She’s compassionate, but hard, and her truth is spoken confidently and with a flourish. Not intending to offend anyone, or to, God forbid, generate engagement. But just there to stand as a testament to herself, and what she stands for.
Reveal your vulnerabilities
Many writers feel the need to present themselves as superior beings when they are writing.
I am guilty of this — whenever I write, I tend to make myself sound like I have all the answers. I look back and read myself, trying hard to sound like a quote on a Pinterest wallpaper. Oh, man.
It’s normal. We all want to present the best versions of ourselves.
And we think it’s what everyone wants — and to some extent, it is. There’s a reason influencers are a thing. The vast majority of them portray superiority in some way, in looks, niche knowledge, money, fame, etc.
Readers are drawn to confidence, of course. But they are also drawn to interesting things, to human things. There’s nothing more human than showing our vulnerability. Anne talks all the time about uncertainty, lack of confidence. She talks a lot about breaking down after criticisms, dark thoughts of people who dislike her work.
There is something about that glimpse that is utterly relatable, and so very human, and I am drawn to it like a moth.
Though, I realize, it’s also because she is very funny.
Make a ton of quirky jokes
Anne said that almost anything is forgivable in a book, except for being a boring narrator. Be anything but boring, is what she said (I’m 90% sure that’s non-verbatim).
If you try hard enough, you can make ChatGPT write a facsimile of a joke. If enough of you is broken, you might even find some of them funny.
Humor is still an inherently human trait, and Bird by Bird has that in spades. It has that in full truckloads. Reading her work makes me feel giddy, like being around that one friend that you just can’t stop laughing with.
I aspire to be that funny, though I don’t know how yet.
I’ve heard before that being a comedian requires you to be broken in some way, to have a kind of mental illness that you’re trying to cope with. If it’s that, my case is hopeless. Unless you count utter average-ness as a psychological disorder.
But maybe it’s just a matter of finding the right people to laugh with you. I know that I’m not at all funny to most people. My friends, though, I can’t stop laughing with. Maybe if we write enough jokes into our work, the people like us will gravitate towards us.
At worst, our readers will say, “Hmm, this person makes terrible jokes.” But, at least, they’re not going to think you’re a robot.
Human Writing in the Age of AI
Look, I write a lot about AI.
It’s because I use it a lot for my day job, yes. But also because I’m fascinated with it. Not just in its shiny cutting-edge tech, or how people can make money from it. But from the way it’s making ripples in the fabric of our reality.
It’s undeniable that AI is firmly part of the tapestry. You see its threads everywhere, whether you like it or not.
As our environment becomes more and more influenced by large language models, we don’t just need to avoid obvious hallmarks of AI content. We must also consciously remember what makes writing human. The proper balance between technology and humanity, I believe, will save us from the deluge of bot content and terrible writing that will flood the internet.
I think humanity in writing is difficult to execute.
Being human means being imperfect, and too often, our eyes and minds are drawn merely to the imperfection. To the bad writing. That’s why this is such a striking reminder for me.
You can break writing rules, and maybe those writing rules didn’t exist in the first place.
