Advice For The Anti-Didactic

Finding Myself Bolted To The Pulpit

musehick
musehick
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

In person I can get into that mode where I find myself up on the soapbox just talking at someone — laying out why a thing is the way it is, and I am steam-rollering ahead, and then I reach a point where I have to pause to take a breath, and I notice that they are sat there like a deer in the headlights, and I know that I have to halt and check that I haven’t just repeatedly hit them in the head with a hammer.

Writing about things that I feel I know about can sometimes lead me into the same traps, and I don’t really like it, and I don’t feel readers like it too much either. I always found The Actor’s Studio great for side-stepping the problem of teaching didactically while still providing useful information.

The urge to help and the rush to codify the opinions into a stance sometimes distorts the intention, and you end up sounding forced and opinionated, and people ridge up against what your saying just because of the delivery.

Better something than nothing? Not true. Considered opinion always trumps blundering in. Preaching from a high horse is about as useful as pissing in the wind. One thing guaranteed to turn most people off is high-handed and ham-fisted.

I like that people are trying to be helpful and informative in a lot of articles, but sometimes you do have an urge to educate in a more direct way than just offering a guide or offering opinions — you want to break it down for someone.

Weirdly it can be a problem writing protest poetry as well, especially if you get to rhyming — you start to sound strident, and you take out your big stick and commence to beating. I am conscious of not clunking, and some of these kinds of diatribes clunk like a mofo, and damn if they don’t get more than a little tedious … they are the proverbial mouthful of dry crackers. No thanks.

Is it a problem with getting older? Nah, not really — at least not in my observation. Throw in a hipster beard and a shit ton of pretension and you have the right ingredients for a real know it all lecture. Throw a vegan into a room full of meat eaters and they will shoot them all down from that moral high ground, and you’ll be lucky to see one of those poor unfortunate carnivores ever again.

I work to avoid it. Hopefully I don’t have to work too hard to avoid it — I am hoping that I have a natural instinct that helps to deliver my ideas in a smooth and palatable way when appropriate, and in an energetic and punchy fashion when I am aiming to knock you around the ring a little.

If you start to read your own work and you can imagine it being delivered in the stentorian tones of some overbearing blowhard, it might be time to step on the brakes, pull back a little, and think about toning it down somewhat. It never hurts to give something a second run through with a new unbiased set of eyes. You may find a better way to say what it is that you want to say, and the new way you deliver it may make your audience that much more receptive. It’s a challenge, one I am turning up every day to take.

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