On publishing

Date created
Mar 29, 2024
Last tended
Mar 29, 2024
Growth stage
Seedling
What are the pros & cons of publishing your thoughts ?

The transparent society

Byung-Chul Han and the constant incentive to be transparent about one’s achievement.
Should we always strive to share our thoughts and achievements publicly?

The pros

Learning in public

Feedback machine

Learning in public enables quick feedbacks from the broader community. A super efficient mean to learn faster.

Forced accountability

Learning in public enables accountability towards your audience (when loyal). You feel committed to deliver (quality).

Impact is achieved by telling stories

Sustainability needs holistic stories

See also:
The human bug

Audience as an asset for resilience

Having a loyal audience enables a sense of resilience.

The cons

The audience is always broader than the story

Your story will always fall flat in the ear of some readers. Misalignment could backlash in shape of harsh criticism.

Adding noise to noise

What makes you think that your story is adding some value to the world?

The ethics of storytelling

The good
  • Publishing a story for yourself, because it feels good.
  • Publishing the “same story” to a new generation of readers.
  • Publishing the “same story” to underline the message to a broader audience.
 
The bad
  • Adding a thought-piece to an already cluttered “public space”, adding to the general confusion.
 

The tight rope of genuine sharing

How to draw the line between genuinely sharing insights and building your personal brand.

Conclusion

Some storytellers don’t overthink it

You can be spontaneous about publishing stories.
See also:
Conscious Spontaneity
 

Publishing stories as a duty

 

The publishing drivers

For others
  1. Publish to change minds, influence and convince about the urgency of the climate crisis.
  1. Publish to be generous.
For you
  1. Publish to structure your thoughts and learn in public.
  1. Publish to be spontaneous.
  1. Publish to increase your resilience.
 
What do you think?
 
See also:
Stories