I like words. I like plain and simple thoughts and stories written down. For as long as the internet existed it has been a great place to read and write.

But while the web has been ever increasingly gaining advancements in design and complexity, I value… no, I crave, simplicity.

Almost all of the web today is geared toward gaining attention and eyeballs. Every year, with every advancement, I feel we distance ourselves more and more from what is really valuable for these mere eyeballs (also known as humans).

At most websites, you have to click through a jungle of stuff which only distracts from their main objective (just to name a few: Medium, Youtube and almost all news outlets on the web). And although I fully understand the business objectives driving these decisions, I feel there is a quality to simplicity and not being over-designed. In my opinion, it adds character.

Most of the time your message will not be more clearly expressed when surrounded by fancy stuff let alone a bombardment of ads and messages.

Plain words on a plain website are in my opinion just like a vinyl record. And just like for people enjoy listening to a vinyl record, it’s not about audio perfection or having all bells and whistles. It’s completely the opposite.

To take the music analogy a step future. A super clean production of a mediocre song can become a hit (with the right number of infuencers and paid-airtime), but be all forgotten about in a year or so. “Perfection” gets boring most often. The song that an artist (possibly with less vocal quality or marketing budget) just had to put out there has the potential to become legendary. Because it has meaning and its roughness only adds to its quality.

With words, like music, it’s also not about perfection but about meaning.

When writing we should feel like an artist making a song. Making a song, not because it will show our vocal capabilities best, but because it’s a song that has to be made, has to be heard.

The same goes for words, the beauty is in meaning. Just feel free to write.

This post is as much reminding myself that my writing doesn’t have to be perfect as supporting everyone reading this to just write down what you feel you have to say!