why no caps y sin mayúsculas
Tags: Writing, Life Lessons, Español, Life, Blog

walter isaacson recounts in steve jobs’s biography the tech legend’s pet peeve with capitalization. he had a strong ideological stance against capital letters. back then, i found the rationale clever and creative. i idealized following jobs’s lead on this one. five plus years after reading that remarkable biography, i can’t even remember his rationale. and i won’t look it up.

because although i originally adopted jobs cosmovision regarding capitalization, now it only serves as diffuse inspiration for my own in the catacombs of my unconscious, right next to the freudian complexes and other sickening neuropathologies of mine. my current ideological stance for ‘no caps’ is myself growing tired of everyone wearing a mask, putting on a show, pretending we’re less vulnerable, less human, and more perfect than we actually are. starting with myself. after a five year stint in the one and only san francisco bay area and silicon valley, a main takeaway is that the most successful people around me were the most authentic. after growing up in a whitexican society that values showmanship & pretentiousness, and ducking in and out of it over the past ten years as i visited and re-visited my hometown, i decided we were long due for a change.

don’t let me get away with it. i said ‘starting with myself’. that warrants an explanation: when i landed in the bay area, after having finished an engineering degree and a business & finance degree in four years, preceded by years and years of back-patting for always being a top performer at inconsequential activities — school and amateur sports — i was confident i was going to knock it out of the park in the next chapter of my life.

pretty early during my sentence at silicon valley prison for the heart and mind, i realized that i had chosen the largest freakin’ pond imaginable and that being a big fish was going to be as tough as being that alzheimer-ridden dory in charge of finding nemo. if i could x, some folks i encountered in the bay area could easily 10x and 100x. with respect to the yardsticks i cared about (e.g. meaningful work, entrepreneurship, brilliance, creativity, sports), the bay area was among the largest, if not the largest pond in the world. i was up for a treat.

my five year stint was lovely, grueling, epic, devastating, and a dozen other beautiful, ugly, and ineffable adjectives. after a ten year stint in the u.s. of a., i come back to my hometown and my beautiful mejico with the strong conviction that vulnerability and authenticity will be key ingredients to unleash my full potential and that of those around me. i’ve started surveying public opinion on this one. you’d be surprised (or not), but many people — some very close to me — would disagree. game’s on. only time will tell.

which brings me back to ‘no caps’: authenticity and vulnerability mean that A’s, B’s, C’s, and D’s need to get off the pedestal. they need to take off their masks and tell their authentic stories, those of a, b, c, and d. in humans and in letters, coming first is no good reason to capitalize. a proper, unique, special name ain’t one either. that just provides an excuse to see the differences in others instead of the commonalities. if we all agree to stay in the world of the lower case, of the imperfect humans, we can all open up, take off our masks, be authentic, and move this giant ball called humanity forward. cherish how flawed we are. celebrate failure for its teachings and for getting us one step closer to success. that’s the silicon valley way in its purest form.

and ‘sin mayúsculas’? that’s just ‘no caps’ in spanish. i will publish in both english and spanish. and i still haven’t figured out a good policy on when to do which. i deliberate about it at the end of this other post. my current policy is: whatever language you feel inspired to write in, write. i’m thinking my future policy will be a combination of that plus topic-based language choice (e.g. my writing on entrepreneurship and productivity in english; my life lessons and funny stories in spanish; etc.)

last but not least, my ass-covering disclaimer: the ‘no caps’ rule is flexible, just like i strive to be. you’ll see caps in my writing from time to time.

“how could you!? i feel betrayed!” — you say.

some publications won’t accept my writing without capital letters. and there, i bite the bullet in the name of a larger audience that hopefully benefits from reading me. other times, the topic being covered warrants suit & tie, which in my writing translates to reverting to capitalization. topics like economics or the inequality gap, for example. and just like i’m psyched for a future where business attire in my hometown evolves to the casual attire of some brilliant minds in silicon valley, i got to pick my battles. econ & the inequality gap are bigger fish to fry. and if i have to wear a suit & tie, i’ll bite the bullet…for now.

lastly, at times an attempt at all lower cases may turn out aesthetically unpleasing or just plain confusing (usa vs USA). my priorities are straight: clear writing > beautiful writing > vulnerable writing. that list is not exhaustive and subject to change without prior notice.

bonne lecture.

fernando from no caps y sin mayúsculas

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medium.com/no-caps