SHOW, DON'T TELL

You'll see by their works

I have been pondering on what to share these past few months and coming up blank. Life has been life-ing but the ability to put it into words had really eluded me.  It wasn't until recently when I saw a post claiming that a lot of people were not interesting enough to have personalised essays on Substack that snapped me out of it. If there's one thing I am committed to fighting with my every breath, it's the rising wave of anti-intellectualism.

This wave is showing up in a lot of ways from saying "Fiction isn't really reading" to using AI to write essays, to the downplay of humanities. It even shows up in the music and movies.

A little aside to the "Fiction is not reading" type because that really ticked me off. Do you have an idea the amount of research one has to do to write some of these works? You actually have to be committed to writing a thriller mystery to research and find out about non-secretors (no, I will not explain that to you. Go read about it, you heathen) and then insert that in this mystery you have created.  And the reader, who will be fascinated by this that they too will do some reading on the matter too. It's funny because ancient societies dressed morals and lessons into stories, songs and proverbs. They did this simply because it'd make the lessons stick and understandable. Now some creature will come and sprout how fiction readers are not truly readers and other creatures will applaud. How have we fallen so far from where we are supposed to be?

The answer is anti-intellectualism.

A few months ago in my creative writing class, I learnt about the show, don't tell technique. This technique is used by writers where rather than spoon-feeding the reader with plain, factual details, 'show, don't tell' demands the writer to take the reader by the hand and lead them into the heart of the narrative, allowing them to live the story, not just read it.
An example is instead of writing 'John was nervous,' which just tells the reader about John's state, the writer might say, 'John's hands trembled as he fumbled with the buttons on his shirt.'  It's more about painting a picture inside the reader's mind rather than plain narration. Essentially it's how writers put readers to task to interpret what they are being shown.
After reading through roughly 300 pages talking about this technique, and a few other references and the subsequent assessments that followed, I started to apply this technique to the movies and shows I was watching. Was it an excuse to rewatch my favourites? I don't need an excuse but it's a pretty good one. It actually made the experience so much better as someone who loves to talk about these shows and movies with my friends. Anna and Jeremiah, if you are reading this, hopefully it explains those random voice notes. Thank you for indulging me.
I'm bringing this up because no-one is going to announce that they stand on the opposite side of intellectualism. They will most likely show you in what they announce. It's your duty then as a reader, a listener to interpret what they are showing. See the signs and act accordingly. This means we have to be diligent in what opinions we are taking on because unfortunately many don't know when they are being anti-intellectuals. And yes it might include you who says the curtains were just blue.

So please write those "boring" substacks. Your boring life could be interesting to someone or even helpful.
So thank you to whoever posted that tweet, now I'm writing just to spite you. I might even write about my struggle with keratoconus and how it has affected my life.