Including the Why

The biggest question I see unanswered in technology, stories, news, etc, is "why?" Why do I want to experience your content? Why does it matter to me? Wrapped up in that question is the context of why it matters to you, the creator. Why you spent time producing the content. Why is this a thing that needed to exist in the world?

Sometimes we may not understand that question ourselves, even while creating. Something just needed to be there, period. We happened to be the one that noticed it and had the skills to create it. Great! Once it's created, we can always go back in and take a second look, figure out why something is. The best way I find to do this is to sleep on it, look at it with a fresh set of eyes, and come at it with the perspective of someone that doesn't know you, your motivations, your context, anything.

Take, for example, this blog post. Why does it need to exist? It originally started out as a reaction to a "vaguebook" post I saw this morning, the very epitome of the lack of "why" (and a bunch of other things). This lead me down a path of thinking through why I struggle to understand some people but not others. Or, for that matter, why I can communicate with some people effortlessly but others it's like we talk past one another endlessly. That's one "why" for me to write this post, but what do I hope a person reading it gets out of it? The other side of the proverbial "why" coin.

Why should someone else read it? ("someone else" also being me, once I've lost the context and "why" of this post in the first place). The most basic reason I can think of is to "change the world." Grandiose, I know, but stick with me. We normally think of "changing the world" as being some grand thing. What we, myself included, fail to recognize is that change can be so subtle, so slight, that no one even notices. That's change too, just on a different scale.

So, back to my grandiose ideas of changing the world. If one person, again myself included, reads this and because of it includes an answer to "why" in their next creation, then it's served its purpose. Reducing the friction in communication between two beings. Getting someone to share their perspective accurately with someone else. That someone else being able to easily step into the perspective of the creator.

So, next time you create something, include a bit of "why". No, you don't need to include 100 pages of backstory before you share your recipe for perfect boiled eggs, but I do want to understand at least a little of your perspective. In this case, why your boiled eggs are better!