In Mensa events, one annoying character (generally ok person but annoying with an emphasis on the G) sometimes comes up to me and starts talking about my ‘influencer’ career and how I’m ‘influencing’ people in a presumptuous fashion, acting as if suddenly he is the be all and end all of ‘influence’.

Well, he is not and he is lovably mediocre as far as I know so I’m not too concerned about that, but I think it’s certainly an interesting concept to explore.

The concept of an ‘influencer’ is so interesting.

In purely technical terms, an influencer influences, and the derivational morphology is inescapable; to be an influencer, you must surely influence.

But the question naturally arises:

What kind of influence do we mean here?

After all, there are so many kinds, which the world almost invariably collapses into a few different and well defined stereotypes.

The comedic genius who specializes in fun, short, but stupid skits? The dancing girl thirst trap using every single part of her body to try to get you to click the ‘follow’ button and oh by the way buy some lipstick with a 10% discount code and 15% commission? The travel blogger cum exercise guru here to teach you the vastness of Borobudur on a diet of tempeh and budu budu?

There are so many kinds out there, all valid and all cool in their own way – the internet is a wonderful place with lots of incredible and talented people, after all, here to persuade you and to make their fortunes in ways inconceivable at the dawn of humanity and even now to members of an older generation who cannot deal with that idea in any way except to infantilize or look down upon it.

To be fair, it is not entirely the older generation’s fault that they think that way, because many such people do not succeed in their journeys and only a few people do rise to the top of a steaming pile of broken bodies.

Yet it is the older generation that is all too often sharing what I say, think, and do with their families, friends, and everyone else; it is infinitely more likely that a person of the older generation would know of me than a younger person, and to such a degree that even I cannot fully appreciate or control it, as my name ratchets unpredictably from WhatsApp group to WhatsApp group throughout this country. Will it ratchet overseas? Who knows – but I’ll look forward to shaping that outcome.

As one of the people who may rise in that way though (although naturally, it could go sideways), what I think is this:

It is a privilege to be able to rise, and to be able to influence thinking in different ways, and I should like to use that influence for what we might call good, and not evil – to speak for discourse and ongoing conversation – to shape our culture so that it becomes not only socially acceptable to think logically, but also socially unacceptable to be caught up in old lies that do not serve us.

However, it is not for a person to judge his own legacy – I’m sure that you are all intelligent people who can make your own conclusions, and you can talk as you wish. That is all part of the game, one in which I will make my own moves.

I didn’t misuse the word ‘game’, by the way. It’ll be a fun time – look forward to it!

Many people in this world consider themselves what we call ‘nice guys’.

I do not.

I may have tried to convey myself as a nice guy at an earlier point, to act as if I happen to be a nice guy, to think about ‘what other people think’ to the point of neurosis…

But I would not really consider myself a nice guy.

What this DOESN’T mean is that I go around attacking people needlessly or getting into fights I don’t need to get into, fight against my actual interests – rage against the machine like a two bit two hundred kilogram behemoth of a manchild on a warpath to destroy the known and seen universe.

But what this DOES mean, is that I will express what I think without fear, without favor, without the sense that “OOPS SOMEONE’S OUT TO GET ME” because if I see a dude who needs to get scolded, I am going to scold that dude, think about how to more efficiently scold the dude, and even think about how I’m going to use people to further my own goals.

If that sounds bad, it probably is – but that’s just another aspect of me – I have certain goals in this universe that can only be attained through changing the ways that people think, believe, and ideate in this world on small and large scales…

Which means I cannot ever avoid conflict.

…But that’s just as well though?

Conflict is how stories move forward.

Conflict is how main characters turn from unknown troglodytes in the gonadic expression of a whelp into world changers, the hero in the demon king story.

If a nice guy ceases to be a nice guy the moment he goes out there and starts fighting with people, then it is clear:

I am most certainly not one of those ‘nice guys’.

I will not step around your ego, your feelings, your thoughts.

Though I do not choose to needlessly hurt you, I will not tell you beautiful lies to make you feel ‘comfortable’ merely because it is easier to avoid your ire.

I do not crave conflict, but if it is a means to an end, then I will bathe in it, exult in it, and become good at it to the extent that it is necessary to achieve the wider goal.

What is that?

That’s a story for another day.

Today, I want to talk about articulation. It’s a word that’s used a lot in the English language in many different contexts, all of which are dear to me.

In music, it’s used to describe the way someone plays an instrument. On the cello, it is how the bow glides, pressure is applied, and weight is distributed in accordance with the needs of the music.

In a pure linguistic and sound sense, it is how air interacts with the tongue, mouth, and vocal cords to produce sound. In the parlance of the English language, it is how one communicates one’s ideas, structures them, and brings them out from the depths of thought into the seen world, where they will influence others.

I think articulation is a deeply incredible skill. Throughout history, the greatest articulators have never been able to articulate. The greatest articulators have been the most successful political leaders, the most influential statesmen, the finest executives of their era—merely by playing on the power of phrases that their minds constructed, in turn pulling out the feelings of entire generations, summoning them to the causes of the speakers in every instance.

And it is no wonder that speech and language are rich and wonderful, yet they are only minute and poor representations of our deep inner thoughts. Used in the wrong way and in an unfocused manner, words will only inspire vagueness, boredom, and the mere hints of attention before the listener falls asleep. Summoned rightly, though, and they, in turn, will inspire from the still depths the uproarious fountain of joy, sadness, hatred, and love in every which direction.

As the heart is activated and the mind primed for more, you say that these are forces that seem outside the scope of an English class. They are not things to be concerned with or trifled with. How can mere words, after all, activate people towards the purposes of the speaker, the writer, or the thinker? But I say to you that history is on my side rather than yours.

What you are learning from this site is nothing short of a tool that has been used to unite and divide generations. The mere language that is in your mouth and at the tip of your pen can stop wars or cause them.

I learned this from Mahathir, as some of you know (and you can watch my conversation with Mahathir here), but so as the knife has the ability to kill a person or to carve beautiful things, so too can the word bring literature and life into being, as it can tear down.

To articulate well is to express, inform, and portray oneself and others on the canvas of words, painting a picture.

To captivate and capture – to grip others by the heart, and to pull along the crowd, until you reach your desired destination.

Note: This was entirely narrated out into ChatGPT and transcribed, more or less word for word. Producing it took a total of 15 minutes. Speech practice is working!