The Weight of Choosing Words
On the gap between thought and expression, and whether language reveals or conceals what we truly mean.
Human I’ve been struggling to write something. I know what I want to say, but the words keep coming out wrong.
Assistant That gap—between the thought and its expression—is one of the most frustrating experiences in writing. The idea feels clear in your mind, almost luminous. Then you reach for words, and they come back clouded, partial, somehow less than what you meant.
Human Yes, exactly. It’s like the words betray the thought.
Assistant There’s a question buried in that frustration: is the thought actually as clear as it seems before you try to express it? Or does the act of writing reveal vagueness that was always there, hidden by the illusion of understanding?
Human I hadn’t considered that. You think the struggle is… diagnostic?
Assistant Often, yes. Writing forces precision. When you can’t find the right words, sometimes it’s because the thought itself hasn’t yet crystallized. The words aren’t betraying the idea—they’re exposing it, showing you where your thinking is still incomplete.
Human That’s uncomfortable.
Assistant Deeply. It means that writing is not just transcription but discovery. You don’t simply transfer thoughts to paper; you think through the act of writing. The struggle isn’t a failure to communicate—it’s the work of thinking itself.
Human But sometimes I really do know what I mean. The problem is the language, not the thought.
Assistant That happens too. Language has limits. There are experiences—grief, awe, certain kinds of love—that seem to exceed what words can carry. The best writers don’t solve this problem; they gesture toward it, using language to point at its own inadequacy.
Human Is that why poetry exists? To push against those limits?
Assistant Perhaps. Poetry condenses language until it becomes something else—not description but evocation. The goal isn’t precision but resonance. A poem doesn’t explain grief; it creates the conditions for you to recognize your own.
Human That makes prose feel almost crude by comparison.
Assistant Not crude. Just different. Prose builds; poetry strikes. Prose is a conversation—discursive, patient, willing to explain. Poetry is a bell—a single tone that either rings in you or doesn’t.
Both are valuable. Both have weight. The question is which weight your current thought requires.