I, you, and we
I have been noticing for a long time now that using “I” or “you” while writing about ideas makes a big difference.
If I use “you” when writing, it sounds like I am positioning the reader in the situation I am describing and telling the anecdote from their perspective. As if I know how they are. Which I find to be overreaching.
E.g. “When you are tired, you pay less attention.”
If I use “I” then it sounds like more of a personal anecdote that you can listen and take away whatever you want from it. This is my preferred way of writing.
E.g. “When I am tired, I pay less attention.”
I was just reading The Creative Act by Rick Rubin and noticed that there is a third alternative. He uses “we” in his writing, positioning himself together with the reader, as if they are going through the situations in his text together.
E.g. “When we are tired, we pay less attention.”
On a talk about the creative process behind his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig also states that the initial state of the book felt like it was talking from a raised platform, looking down on people and once he “put the whole blessed essay in the mouth of a narrator who was on a motorcycle trip” it felt more human.
I also learned from ChatGPT that Joan Didion chose to write from first person perspective and famously stated “I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking”. I'll read her essays on writing.
