Ideas
Nadia Sorel
On the usefulness of not knowing what you think yet.
The most interesting thinking happens in the space before the conclusion arrives.
The pressure to have a take
We live in a culture that rewards having a take. On everything. Immediately. The event happens and within hours the takes are published and the positions are staked and the argument is underway. This is efficient in certain ways. It is also deeply hostile to the kind of thinking that produces something worth reading rather than something that merely exists. The take is the enemy of the thought. The thought requires time that the take does not allow.
What not knowing feels like
Not knowing what you think yet is an uncomfortable state. It involves holding a question open without resolving it. Sitting with competing arguments without deciding which one wins. Noticing that you have feelings about something that are not yet organised into a position. This discomfort is productive. It is the condition in which the most interesting thinking happens. It is also the condition that the contemporary media environment is least tolerant of.
The value of the draft position
There is a position between not knowing and knowing that is worth spending more time in. The draft position. The position you hold lightly while you continue to think. The position that is a working hypothesis rather than a commitment. The draft position is useful because it gives you something to test rather than something to defend. You can push on it. You can look for the places where it does not hold. You can update it when you find them. This is how thinking actually works when it is working well.
What happens when you rush to the conclusion
When you rush to the conclusion, you stop thinking at the point where the thinking gets interesting. You arrive at the position before you have done the work that would tell you whether the position is any good. You commit to something based on your first response to a question rather than your considered one. The first response is almost always less interesting than the considered one. It is also the one that gets published most often because it arrives first.
The writers who stay in the uncertainty
The writers worth reading are almost always the ones who stay in the uncertainty long enough for something interesting to happen there. They write about what they do not yet understand rather than what they have already figured out. They treat the essay as a form of thinking rather than a vehicle for conclusions. They are willing to arrive somewhere unexpected because they did not start with the destination already decided. These pieces are rarer than they should be. They are also the ones that last.
The most interesting thinking happens in the space before the conclusion arrives.
What this requires of the reader
Reading pieces that stay in the uncertainty requires something from the reader. The willingness to follow a writer through a process rather than to a conclusion. The tolerance for not knowing where things are going. The patience to sit with a question that is not going to be answered cleanly. These are not demanding requirements. They are the normal conditions of good thinking. But they are conditions that a culture optimised for the take has made feel unusual.
Why it is worth cultivating
The ability to not know what you think yet is worth cultivating deliberately. It means resisting the pressure to publish before you are ready. It means treating uncertainty as a productive state rather than a problem to be resolved. It means being willing to say I do not know yet to questions that you are expected to have positions on. This is harder than it sounds. It is also one of the more reliable routes to thinking that is actually worth sharing.
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About the author
Nadia Sorel
Covers food, ideas, and the stories that sit just underneath the surface of both. Interested in where things come from and what gets lost in the telling. Has strong opinions about markets and no opinions she is willing to keep to herself. Based in Paris, reluctantly.
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