Why it's not Enough to Say What You Mean

December 16, 2025 (original form dec 8)

in the past I have believed that if I synthesize an idea well enough, if I distill it into the precise correct combination of words, then what I mean to convey will shine through with sufficient clarity to be transmitted entire. the best way to say most things is to attempt to convey exactly what you mean. art-as-such is higher bandwidth, but lower precision, and so is not the correct tool to use for this. I no longer believe this (at least for certain classes of ideas).

something I've been circling around the past few months has been the tendency to obfuscate and obscure, to make occluded (occult), to wrap in layers of fiction, to add style and panache where it seems clear explanation would be superior. at first I really did not get it. I thought it was pointless at best and malicious at worst (given that these techniques can be used to hide the lack of substance as much as they can be used to encode actual substance). I'm starting to get it now, from a few different angles.

Fiction is a Vehicle

I've known this for a while but experienced more directly recently: no matter how plainly you say something, it will appear that you are being evasive to those without the prerequisite gnosis/experience. the occluded is necessarily so. this doesn't prevent people from trying to say things plainly, but from what I can gather, it ends up being pretty frustrating and so people don't stick with that for long.

When we speak of “the secrets that cannot be told,” we do not mean merely that rules prevent us from speaking freely. We mean that the inner knowledge literally cannot be expressed in words. It can only be conveyed by experience, and no one can legislate what insight another person may draw from any given experience. For example, after the ritual described at the opening of this chapter, one woman said, “As we were chanting, I felt that we blended together and became one voice; I sensed the oneness of everybody.” Another woman said, “I became aware of how different the chant sounded for each of us, of how unique each person is.” A man said simply, “I felt loved.”
Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, 20th anniversary edition

the vehicle of fiction provides an insulating layer that doesn't require this direct knowledge to understand. it's showing by example, a finger pointing at the moon instead of an exhaustive description of the moon itself. further, reality is itself "composed of fictions–consistent semiotic terrains that condition perceptive, affective, and behavioral responses." (thx ccru) so you can see why the ability to create and modulate these fictions is on a higher, not lower level of working than direct writing. it is here that magic can happen, here that the gateway is provided for the thing which makes itself real to come into existence. mazeway, hyperstition, hypersigil, it's all the same thing.

fictions allow for sensory information; it is hard to imagine a philosophical treatise that uses the crunch of leaves in any way but strictly bounded metaphor or simile. through fiction, we can construct self-consistent and thus self-reinforcing structures of place and feeling. this both serves the aesthetic function and gives the text anchor points and threads between them. it makes fictions sticky.

fictions are disjunct from perceived reality in that they are not refutable. this helps them burrow deeper. you worry at them with your mental teeth. they are not accepted or rejected, they are sclerotia, koans, they have the power to remain until the right psychic key (gnosis/experience) unlocks a new meaning, opens a doorway you had not before considered, and lets you step through.

You Have to Learn to Play

there's a certain playfulness that's not accessible from the dry direct mode of communication, and that playfulness is itself the content. it is inseparable. it cannot be communicated in the manner that I am communicating in now. so you must invoke the shroud of fiction or playfulness or occlusiveness in order to say what it is that needs to be said, there is no other way. show by example! it's fun and it works!

The Aesthetic is Essential

the aesthetic is a playful domain. style is also substance. all information is unified with its presentation. pure ideas don't exist, everything exists in an aesthetic context, so why not use it on purpose? what it can help convey is the "not-yet-conscious:"

...the anticipatory illumination of art, which can be characterized as the process of identifying certain properties that can be detected in representational practices helping us to see the not-yet-conscious. This not-yet-conscious is knowable, to some extent, as a utopian feeling. When Bloch describes the anticipatory illumination of art, one can understand this illumination as a surplus of both affect and meaning within the aesthetic.
Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity by José Esteban Muñoz

this is how the pattern speaks. this is where gods and demons lurk, this is the only way to speak of the things that are not already here. purely descriptive language is simply insufficient for the task.

Doing Things With Words

the goal is to speak words that carry their truth with them, that have an effect on the world, that do something instead of merely say something. another way (other than through the terrain-modification of fiction) to do this is with speech acts: "I name this ship the Mary Celeste," "I now pronounce you married," "I promise I will return your jacket," "I invoke the power of the mother goddess now." affirmations seem to count here as well.

music is one place I have seen this pulled off well. it is firmly aesthetic, playful, and has the space for speech acts. the container of the song serves as the shroud of fiction (though sometimes it is more explicitly nested; the singer is a character or inhabits a world or consciousness we can see ourselves in). the following tracks clearly constitute prayers and workings, to me. this is music that does something, rather than just is something:

Ok. Ok. I Think I Get it Now. Ok.

I mentioned that I experienced the gnosis-making-something-understandable thing recently. I will try and convey my experiences here. a few months ago, I read through niko's website. (and you should too!) I was frustrated because while I could tell that there was something to get, and that it was written as directly as possible, I was not getting it. the aesthetics of the page are essential, part of the content, and it is written in this playful spirit. it uses fictions well. it does everything right, and still says exactly what it means, but I didn't understand. real "get out of the car" moment.

it was sticky sticky sticky and got stuck stuck stuck in my head. it rattled around and hit some other things (ways i have seen ⛭thers being in the world, things my friends have said, buried shards of information processing architecture) and suddenly it was clear as day. it felt like waking up, it felt like learning a secret, it felt like remembering something i have always known. and i haven't remembered or retained all of it, the thing i learned is something you need to practice. but it is easy if you let it be. i would try and write it, but niko says it much better than i can rite now.

\/\/\/\/\/\/(: click me :)\/\/\/\/\/\/