I’ve mused before about the conjunction 'but.' A couple days ago I thought about ‘and.’ This is how it went down.
I was reading an email over my wife’s shoulder (she loves that!). For some dorky reason, it made me think of that innocent little conjunction. Since you signed up for these random emails, you get to see how my brain works. I’ll paraphrase the email:
So-and-so has done awesome stuff and through her being awesome, we have become more awesome.
It was a fine email. Nothing terrible, which maybe makes it a better example than one with a string of endless conjunctions. The devil’s in the details. This is how my brain wanted to read it:
So-and-so has done awesome stuff. Through her being awesome, we have become more awesome.
Subtle, I know. But without the ‘and,’ it’s arguably more powerful. Simpler. Simple is always better than complicated. Except it’s hard. It’s much easier to just include everything, to go on and on. For any photography geeks, it’s the same as how shooting with a telephoto lens is harder than a wide-angle. I’ve realized this, which has led me to be hyper-aware of seeing and using ‘and.’ Like discreetly, even in that email.
If you agree in the case of ‘and’ that less is more, that simpler is more powerful, I welcome you into the Hyper-Aware-Of-And Club. It’s a cool group. I also apologize because you’re going to start seeing it everywhere.
ps - Case in point… I originally wrote the first sentences of the second paragraph like this: I was reading over my wife’s shoulder (she loves that!). It was an email and for some dorky reason made me think of that innocent little conjunction. Re-reading it, I realized the ‘and’ was unnecessary and re-wrote it. Boom.
