Contemplation in 2025

I sometimes hear from readers who figure that there's something wrong, either with me or them, because they can't easily pick up my gist, and must reread posts.

Either the problem's on my side—because I'm convoluting otherwise simple ideas (I'm not), or I'm just too "brainy" (that might be true if these ideas came easily to me, but I'm a normal guy who thinks long and hard)—or the problem's their's, for being foggily unable to connect as easily as they do with magazine articles and typical blog posts.

Neither is true.

Writers these days aim for easy digestibility above all. Like mama birds, they pre-chew everything to vomit down readers' gullets, terrified by their knowledge of how finicky folks are about unprocessed chunks. For years, I was one of the most easily digestible of writers. I don't regret it, it was fun, and I'm proud of my output (read some here).

But notions and insights percolate that do not lend themselves to glib premastication. Readers must chew a bit on writing which requires—and hopefully rewards—multiple re-readings. In 2025, that's a shocking ask. But while mental exercise isn't for everyone/anyone (super smart people get particularly frustrated when their powerful minds can't effortlessly Hoover everything up on the first pass), a few holdouts like me still demand it. Substance has no economic or aesthetic value in 2025, but it pings my Golden Rule. As a reader, I'd love this stuff.

I'm constantly bombarded by gooey glibness—the same ideas, the same buzzwords, the same framings with just a slight tilt to make it the writer's own. I can go weeks or months without seeing a single fresh idea. The Slog is mostly fresh ideas, and fresh ideas don't swallow easily. Re-reading is necessary.

I've re-read all the postings in the left sidebar multiple times, because I write to firm up nebulous intuition into more solid ideas and to try to connect them. Each time I reread, it firms up and connects better, propelling me toward new epiphanies and connections. I've been doing exactly what you've hopefully been doing - chewing on these ideas. The necessity of doing so is not a bug, it's a feature. It's not that I'm smart, or that you're dumb. It's that contemplation, while a sorely underused faculty, remains an option (for both of us!).

I addressed this seven years ago in a posting called "Cognitive Lozenges", noting that "these postings are cognitive lozenges which, by design, impede speedy absorption (by, for example, forcing you to unpack phrases like "cognitive lozenges"). The ideas that absorb me are counterintuitive and nuanced, and while I always leave a breadcrumb trail, I choose not to spoon-feed (having worked as a professional spoon-feeder for years). I want you to work it all through, as I have, and maybe go further than I could."