E. Emotions in Writing
If one is serious about writing, one must acquire real-life knowledge about the subject. The subject is a real problem for the author. The author must walk through horrific failures to some success in the subject to have any real understanding, and knowledge about the subject, and to be emotionally associated with the subject.
For instance, this article’s theme is quite simple. Should one write in a simple concise manner, or should one go deeper into the subject and present the subject with as much totality as one can? The answer could be political such as “if you intend to write for a premium and small group of readers, write a detailed article, and if you want more popularity and readers, write simple and concise articles.”
If the eventual message of the article was the above politically correct, absolutely central answer, then you wouldn’t have given any fuck about the article in the first place. Whether it is a simple story or a theory, we learn to be able to take better decisions. You want to shape our worldview. We want to establish a theory and philosophy in our brain around which we want to live.
We are already in a central state of indecisiveness if we are reading an essay. Because, we already know that we don’t invest our resources into anything that is not our need, and anything that is not challenging us, or making us struggle is not our need. To overcome that state of struggle will need one to take action, and that action needs to come through a decision, and that decision needs to come through a philosophical framework of the brain. Therefore the philosophical framework of the brain has to be polarizing and point us in one direction. Therefore the message of an essay and reading has to take the user in one direction.
Because every essay is targetting the philosophical framework of the reader, not presenting a subject from enough angles appears like an opinion.
Martin Luther, a German Christian Theologian, and priest published 95 Thesis in the year 1517, an essay pointing out the malpractices of the church that is against God, and against spirituality.
Pope Leo X, wanted to rebuild and decorate St. Peter’s Basilica of Rome and left his name in history. However, for this, he needed a lot of funding. He decided to hire indulgence agents to offer indulgence to wealthy individuals in Germany. Indulgence was the practice of paying money to the church to buy a pardon from God for one’s sins so that one did not have to suffer in Purgatory(an intermediate place where Christian souls rest before their final journey to hell or heaven).
Martin Luther cited various biblical writing, examples, and historical evidence and tore apart the indulgence drive of Leo X. Initially he was seen as someone with a desire to get some limelight or someone who perhaps wanted a position in the church through his theatrics. However, then invented new printing technology, and emotionally written 95 Thesis spread amongst the general German population like a fire.
Thesis 86, asks: “Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?” Of course, you wouldn’t expect the pope to be kind, as his honor and political position were at stake.
Sylvester Mazzolini was given the responsibility to counter Martin Luther’s thesis. However, Sylvester Mazzolini first created an opinion of Herasy against Martin Luther and then started publishing one-sided essays depicting Martin Luther as an anti-christian, and anti-church. Each time Mazzolini published an essay, Martin Luther would write a rebuttal with far greater depth and keep the two essays side-by-side, asking people to decide.
Even after several efforts and tricks Leo X couldn’t put Martin Luther into trial, though the church excommunicated him on the charges of trial. He couldn’t be called to Rome. After the excommunication, Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, and wrote hymns and essays for God worshipping, leading the path to the Protestant Churches.
Whenever an author like Sylvester Mussolini forms an opinion or a rigid worldview around a subject and then tries hard to justify the opinionated examples that enforce the narrative, such a narrative becomes one-sided simplified opinions of the author. Any opinionated view is not well processed and thought through and therefore is not philosophical.
As our brain attaches its emotion to the philosophy, but defends the opinion with aggression, the one-sided narratives become aggressive pieces if any human emotions are to be found in the essays.
Whenever an Author like Martin Luther arrives to challenge that narrative, people more often or not sideline the author. Martin Luther could engage people’s emotions because he had a doctorate in theology, as well as spent almost seven years searching for a true God, outside of church and papacy. He went into deep thinking spaces, would jolt down ideas, challenge his own ideas, present them before his critique, get the ideas and theories challenged by the other theoreticians and theologians, and would present the contrary views about his own ideas and thesis.
The more you are troubled by a problem, the more you suffer in life with one subject, the more time you spend on the subject, the more you think through the subject, the more you experiment and learn, and maneuver, the more you read and then implement the theories, the methods, theories, the problem, and the subject start forming a multidimensional philosophy in your brain. You know that the idea that you are presenting is not an opinion. The idea that you are presenting has been looked at from different angles and has been developed as a live idea. You know that the philosophy is emotional for you because you have invested significant time and resources of your life into the subject to solve your real-life’s problem.
If the author is not emotional about an idea or an essay, then that idea has no impact on people, and if one hasn’t lived the idea in real life, gaining real-life experiences on the subject, if one has not witnessed and considered the aberrations and contrasts, then one is merely opinionated about the idea and not emotional about the idea.
If you have read other internet pieces on this subject, then you can easily distinguish the change that is taking place inside your inner world, in your hormonal and emotional space, as you are reading this article. This article is taking you through a journey in your mind and not just trying to trick you towards an opinion. This article is also not attempting to convince you to believe in the subject. Rather, you are walking with the story, thinking about various other related pieces of information and life experiences as you are reading this. That is the emotional engagement, and that is an outcome that every author, and every essay desires and deserves.