Raymond's Weblog^

On Stating The Obvious

I think a lot of why I don’t end up writing things is that I fall into the classic trap:

When I have a new idea, I don’t feel I’ve thought about it hard enough or grasped it well enough to write about it
When I’ve sat with it for long enough to be able to write, it feels too obvious

Here I’m giving myself a pass because it would be too ironic not to: what follows is my defence of stating the obvious.

A brief aside first: what is obvious? There are of course two types of obvious:

Type 1: Entirely and immediately obvious
Type 2: Obvious only in retrospect

(I didn’t come up with this distinction, but ironically I can’t find a source)

Reasons to state the obvious

One excellent reason is that it might be wrong, and unless I say it, I’ll have a harder time finding that out (or perhaps I’ll simply find out the hard way).

Another is for those who haven’t encountered it yet: I have benefitted immensely from the internet writing of others, and I’d be glad to make some small contribution to the circulation.

Even for those who do know it, it can still be useful to have a succinct reference: even the obvious sometimes benefits from clear expression.

And then there’s something elusive like planting a flag: there are always many people making many claims about many things, and it is entirely possible that something will become a lot more obvious in ten years time. So to state the obvious is a way I can show that it is obvious to me, now, for better or worse.

I think that of all of these, the last one is the best reason to write, but also the one that requires the most courage.