Choice of container

Form shapes content, content demands form

Last night I was standing on the subway platform with a friend,¹ talking through whether she should text someone. We agreed that she should, though weren’t sure about the substance. The train arrived and we stepped in and after we sat down I saw she was on her phone, already reading a new message in response to hers.

You sent it!? I said. That was fast.

She gave a half laugh/smile and said, yeah, when I decide what I want to say the writing comes quickly. Writing is easy for me, she continued. I’m not good at talking the way you are. Or, it takes me a while to figure out what I want to say out loud. But with writing, I can just do it, and it comes out how I want. Writing is what works.

I relate to this friend. Although I no longer struggle with verbal communication, writing has consistently been the way I try to figure things out, process my thoughts, identify and express my emotions. It’s most of what I do for work, and also what I produce creatively—fiction, occasional (very bad) poetry, and now this newsletter. For a while it was the only way I felt I could reliably express myself to loved ones. So I sent letters, emails, texts, all of them saying what I didn’t think I could otherwise.

Over the years, something changed. I’ve learned there are things I shouldn’t send over text.² Abstraction can occur in the written form; I’ll type words that I wouldn’t say in person or on the phone. I’ve learned that it’s different when I hear someone’s voice, see their expressions. I become more grounded in those interactions, tied to my feelings, aware of how what I say might impact the other person. Especially when I’m trying to express something delicate or hard, texts get me in trouble.

It often seems like if I can’t say a thing out loud, I shouldn’t write it.

The Noguchi Museum, May 2021.

Although this guideline is most useful in my personal life, it also applies at work.

Appellate courts generally give litigants the option of appearing in person to argue their case, in addition to filing written briefs. Whether to request oral argument is an oft-debated strategic decision. The question is, will arguing this case in person help or hurt my chances of getting my client what they want from their appeal? Does what I’ve written in my briefs hold up in a quasi-conversation with a panel of judges? Can I explain myself in plain language and with a compelling narrative? What am I actually trying to say, and can I actually say it?

I find I can hide things in writing that I can’t hide when explaining the same argument verbally. Speech has a refining quality—a sentence might seem to flow on paper but stick in my throat if I try to speak it. Often, even if I write a persuasive brief, the same argument's flaws are revealed through in-person questioning.³

One of the beauties of writing is how words on a page can emit or explore ideas, emotions, or thoughts that might not be capable of direct expression otherwise. In a recent interview, the writer Jenny Zhang was asked if, when she started a project, she knew ahead of time which of her typical vehicles—poetry, fiction, essays—she planned to use. She replied that, although her process is instinctual, she has parameters for what form particular content demands. She explains:

“If I want to say something that isn’t easily expressed by conventional language, it often becomes poetry. With fiction, it’s usually because I want to tell some kind of story or because I have a character in mind. I find that with nonfiction, there’s always the prompt; there’s always a theme that an editor gives me first. Then, within those bounds, I can go crazy.”

Even under the umbrella of writing, different forms can be vehicles for different types of exploration, ideas, and emotions.

So many different containers contained here. How gauche!

I’ve recently been exchanging letters with a friend who doesn’t have access to a phone or computer. It’s been fascinating to hear this person’s voice in a new mode. They sound different in their handwritten letters than they do in texts, in person, or over the phone. Just as I remember being surprised when I first heard them on a phone call and how it was somehow different from their voice in person, I’m again surprised as I read their handwritten letters. The new medium presents a new facet; it allows me yet another way to see this person, to connect with them. All forms of communication are imperfect. All forms have something to share.

I like how writing allows for time and space between the transmission and the reception. That pause, the digestion period, is not without its problems—by the time a reader has absorbed the writer’s work, the writer may no longer feel the way they did at the time of writing. But the pause also provides space for the kind of abstraction and deep thinking that is sometimes necessary to absorb hard truths or big ideas. As long as a piece of writing can be seen as its own thing, and not as an “accurate” portrayal of the writer, it can have value regardless.

That’s perhaps where texts cause the most damage—sometimes I write something quickly that doesn’t capture how I feel in an accurate, let alone nuanced, way. Impulsivity, anger, and carelessness can all cloud the message. Yet then it’s out there, ready to be used by the recipient as evidence, as truth of how I feel. But it’s not the truth; it’s just another one of oh so many texts.

What I say, what I actually utter, in person must always take priority over what I texted. It's not that I think words are empty vessels, to reference an ongoing debate I have with my friend Dan.⁴ Words matter; word choice matters; writing matters. But words are imperfect. They can obscure and hide and manipulate. They can be used as weapons, or as balms. (Balms, bombs—if I spoke that sentence out loud we’d have trouble, huh.)

Perhaps I’m doing writing “wrong” a lot of the time; maybe all writing should be grounded in the same kind of way that intentional in-person conversation is.

But also, probably not. Different containers exist to transmit different messages, and different people use containers in different ways. What can we do but try our best, put it out there in whatever way feels right, and check in with someone before assuming the worst about what they said?⁵

This feels like enough words for today. Have a great long weekend,

-Julia

P.S. Vessels is a month old! Thanks to everyone who reads it—I’m floored. As always, please share/subscribe/keep in touch.

1. I’m visiting New York! It’s been fun.

2. Surprisingly am not talking about nudes.

3. It also seems like judges may feel comfortable expressing things in written opinions that they might not say to a litigant’s face—snark, in particular. But I’m jaded.

4. I just realized the subconscious basis for this newsletter’s title.

5. Communication really is cursed, huh.