When Your Ideas Are Too Abstract
By: Ryan Fan
Tags: Mindfulness, Self, Philosophy, Ideas, Writing

When Your Ideas Are Too Abstract

And your writing doesn’t give value

Photo by Billy Huynh on Unsplash

I recently had a friend give feedback on why a piece of my writing didn’t do well. The feedback was this:

Your ideas are too abstract, out of touch, and not grounded in reality.

There was no actionable examples or advice, just a wrestling of spiritual ideas. My abstract ideas didn’t add value to my reader. It was too theoretical. The writing was nice, but there was nothing new and no takeaways for the reader.

Needless to say, the feedback didn’t feel very good.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary does not define “abstract” in a positive light, with definitions like “insufficiently factual” and “difficult to understand”. One definition even defines abstract as having “little or no attempt at pictorial representation or narrative content.”

For example, think about relationship advice. Too often isn’t actionable. Buzzwords like “trust’ and “communication” are thrown around like they’re the holy grail, and it’s not like they’re not important words of advice, but everyone’s heard them before. What do trust and communication look like in different contexts? What are actionable ways to build trust and communication?

I have come around to the idea that readers read for value, and I do as well. If a piece of writing doesn’t have any value, it’s less likely to be compelling — and I’m a very stream-of-consciousness, get everything off my chest kind of writer. I have a confessional style that doesn’t always translate to actionable takeaways.

I write a lot of abstract content. I write a lot about my faith — and when you’re writing about Bible verses and God, it’s really difficult for your writing not to be abstract until you start applying examples. I write a lot about spiritual beliefs and ideas — how is that not abstract?

I wrestle with the idea that every concept needs an application. Who am I, after all, to tell you how to apply your faith or spiritual beliefs to your life? I’m nobody and needing to make abstractions more practical is something I seriously struggle with because I believe every person should have the right to their own interpretation or decision-making.

However, it’s a middle ground. If your head is all in the clouds and you’re debating theory, well, who’s the person that needs to be actually doing? That’s how I make my peace with political arguments, for example. Sometimes, arguments are too much talking, debating, and yelling, but not enough doing. We wrestle with ideas, and yet in my personal observations, the difference between how someone thinks and believes versus how they behave and act towards others can be very different.

So it’s the interplay between theory versus practice.

You need both — but when is it too much theory, and not enough practice? For example, I, as a liberal, can debate a conservative for hours about whether it’s better to have small government or big government, or whether we should have a regressive versus a progressive tax system. At a certain point, however, you just have to take action.

To seriously help a community or people in need, I might work on a clean-up project like I did last week, help friends move, give to someone who is in need, or donate. I’m sure the same conservative I’m debating the size of government with might do the same. We might not donate to the same charities or nonprofit organizations, but in action, we agree on the same methodology to help.

When my ideas are too abstract, I have to ground myself more in the real world. Many people have different ideas than I do, and they believe abstract ideas are boring because there are no visuals. A big company rebranding with a new logo or different delivery vans has a very practical rebrand. If the idea of the rebrand stays in the abstract, it’s never going to happen.

John Spacey at Simplicable also says that abstract ideas fail because everyone is doing it. In the business world, Spacey says that “business buzzwords are overused abstractions.” Abstractions tend to just be noise because they are overused and can come off as generic.

If abstractions by themselves have no value to readers, how can I and other abstraction-minded people turn abstract ideas into valuable content? Well, for one, action— people want to know how to apply a novel idea even if I personally want to allow room for ambiguity and interpretation.

For example, the late John Lewis’s quote: “freedom is not a state; it is an act...[it] is the continuous action we all take” is an absolutely beautiful and galvanizing quote. But what can we do about it? How can we apply it for those energized by Lewis’s inspiration?

For one, we can vote. We can protest. We can write to our legislators about what we want to see happen, and we can donate to causes we believe in, and, if we’re willing to risk enough, we might be willing to leave a dissatisfying and meaningless job for one that makes a difference for the future of the country. I’d seen several people change careers from bartenders or business executives into a more fulfilling and altruistic career in teaching, being galvanized by Civil Rights era heroes like John Lewis.

At the end of the day, however, it’s a balance; the best and most valuable content is likely a mixture of abstract and concrete. In psychology, an abstract object might be the sport of basketball. A concrete object would be a basketball game. It is the game that excites us more than the concept. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, one proposal for what makes an object abstract is if it lacks any causal powers, or the ability to make any tangible impact.

I, however, struggle as a writer with that balance between abstract and concrete. Relaxing is a very abstract concept. But you need, well, concrete things to relax. You might need a couch, bed, or water. Those are concrete matters.

What does that mean for faith? Is God concrete or abstract? I don’t know the answers to a lot of those questions and I might have just taken myself on an emotional whirlwind. But I know I’m not alone. I have seen politicians my entire life stress abstract concepts like justice, peace, unity, and love. However, I’ve rarely seen politicians explaining how they’re going to pursue these benevolent abstract concepts.

I’m no different in my personal life. I have spent this whole summer thinking and stressing about “becoming a better teacher than I was my first year.” Do you want to know a secret? I haven’t thought, for a second, of how I’m going to be a better teacher, but now that I think more about it, it starts with some mashup of setting boundaries between work and my personal life, documenting phone calls, supplementary aids, and services more consistently rather than at the last minute, and grading more consistently. Using a stopwatch while teaching will stop me from getting off track.

Abstract theory is inspiration. Abstract theory is motivation. And that means abstract theory is important — I wanted to teach because I wanted to make a difference in educational inequity and get kids to believe in themselves. If I didn't have those theoretical ideas, I wouldn’t have become a teacher.

Theory, however, is just the start. Next comes the implementation. I want to become a better writer — but to make that goal concrete, I should probably use less theory and more practical examples.