On Concision
"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do." - Thomas Jefferson
Why is concision an important skill?
Often verbosity, the ability to speak or write at length eloquently, is praised for its demonstration of skill and sophistication.
Yet, concision is the real talent.
This is not to be confused with "curtness" or "abruptness."
Concision takes CPU power, in the same way compressing an extremely large file does; and it does so not for its own sake. "Lossy" compression discards what can't be perceived and achieves a smaller file that costs less to store or to send.
Concision in communication (and not saying that this essay is concise, at least not till it's gone through several more edits) performs a similar function: removes that is not valuable to the receiver so they get the same content in less time and lower cost.
The quality of thinking to make something concise is rare and overlooked; but building those muscles will help you in life in general.
Concision is often a proxy for comprehension.
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Albert Einstein
At the microlevel, reviewing one's own writing and looking for superfluous words like a hawk is time-consuming, draining, and often seems unnecessary. Putting that extra time in, though, is like performing drills in sports: it's boring but is the basis for all thinking and writing.
In fact, I'd argue that the best writing skill is likely editing something long and compressing into something just as meaningful.
"Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination." - Louise Brooks
Eliminating the unnecessary is building up your skills to defeat the tyranny of the trivial.
Remove things, find the white space, for in that white space can come your own fresh ideas and how you can draw new, unseen connections. On Connections
Summarization may seem like an errand for note-takers, and is likely going to be overtaken by AI; but there's still value in trying to find the core nugget that really matters.
On one hand, over simplification helps no one: it stunts your own brain while misleading others.
And it takes great wisdom and insight to not fall for this mistake.
It also takes time. I don't think, in the end, there's much getting around the additional time it will take to make concise whatever you have written:
"I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter." - Blaise Pascal
But the time involve truly is not just pruning individual words. The real play is to grok the complex ideas, especially when the original purveyors of those ideas want the complexity.
"I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." - Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
This kind of thinking, the ability to take the truly complex, and by wrestling with it, probably breaking it down into its bones and joints, and then re-assembling it in a new form of simplicity should be a primary undertaking.
In fact, even if you're in a backwards education system like public schools or even most American Universities, it can still be worth you time to do this kind of breaking down and building back up of the ideas to avoid regurgitating the sins of the past.
This can contribute to greater mastery.
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Albert Einstein
On way to exercise this is the reading of very pithy statements. Such as from Proverbs or Tao Te Ching.
With AI, the skill becomes easier...but not unnecessary.
tldr;
Concision speaks louder than verbosity.
Insights come from seeking the understanding you need to be concise.
It's much harder to write less.