what do writing, atoms, and playing Jenga have all in common

Here’s what I’m struggling with, when writing, so I might just face it head-on.

Ever read a non-fiction book and then felt that you could squeeze those several hundred pages into one or a few core concepts that would fit on one page? Admittedly, there is a lot of beating around the bush happening in the realm of writing. Core concepts are wrapped in layers upon layers of mush.

Curiously, this seems to pretty much reflect the structure and dynamics of an atom. It has a lot of “empty space” that is actually not empty (typical quantum mechanics quagmire, right?). To simplify, it is a soup of plenty of “things” and fluctuations that average out to zero.

There is an alternative to fluff. Writing (and a bunch of other things in life) can also be like playing Jenga. Once a piece is written, you’ve got yourself a tower. But the actual game is about carefully and methodically removing those blocks which are not necessary to keep the tower erected. That’s what a big part of revising text can be about. It’s trimming mental construction to get to its essence. And it’s damn difficult.