“Just say what you mean.”

I’ve usually been told this when struggling to put something to words. It sounds simple. Why didn’t I think of that? But it isn’t. In a lot of cases we don’t know what we mean, but we have to try and put it to words anyway. When our point fails to get made, it’s unclear whether we aren’t smart enough, the idea isn’t good enough, or something else entirely.

The notions come naturally. The first problem is that actually putting the right words together is deceptively difficult.

You meet someone at a party and end up sharing an observation you’ve been making more frequently. They’re really interested and ask you to email them about this later in more detail. This is fantastic; you’ve been struggling to bring this up in conversation with friends and finally have a listening ear. The next day you sit down to write the email. You know what you’re trying to say, but every way of putting it assumes context they don’t have. The phrasing that would actually land requires explaining three other things first.

With enough time, we can usually make our thoughts legible. But the second, and harder, problem is that the time during which people are receptive to our ideas is often limited.

You see what your coworker missed in their email—the frame that would actually solve it, not just move it forward. You start typing, trying to get it down before the thread moves on. But the shape won’t come fast enough. The words are there, the idea is there, but the way to put it isn’t. By the time you’ve got something that might work, three people have already replied to the simpler version. The decision closes. Your coworker gets the credit for unblocking things, and you’re left holding a better answer no one cares enough to see.

The zeitgeist has no onboarding call: if you’re going to say it, now’s the time. But supposing we find the words, we find the timing, we still have a third, and hardest, problem: if they don’t understand what we mean, can we even accurately diagnose the problem?

You keep getting the same reader response: “interesting, but I’m not really sure what you’re saying.” You are saying something—you, at least, can feel the way each section is driving the point. You rewrite a few paragraphs and more explicitly state a few things. The response doesn’t change. You start feeling more confused about your own work. Were things ever making sense to begin with? You’re groping in the dark. The thing blocking legibility is invisible from your position, and the people who could name it aren’t in the room.

Describing things is hard, catching the current wave is hard, getting good feedback is hard. What happens when you hit more than one? When they compound, you lose the ability to diagnose which one broke you.

You publish something that connects a currently popular topic to something you’ve been thinking about for months. The response is almost nothing—one comment from someone who seems confused, though you’ve seen them comment confused on other posts too. Maybe that’s just them. Rereading your work, the wording seems clear. The topic relevant. People are definitely talking about this. So what’s wrong? You can’t tell if the framing was off, if the timing was wrong, if you needed to explain more context, or if the idea just isn’t as interesting as you thought.

Six months later you see someone else publish essentially the same thinking to significant reception. The idea was viable. Your execution wasn’t. You still don’t know why.