# Cohesive Narrative The world of available information is vast. Between other books and articles the space is vast. Trying to write an article or book that touches on all of these things just won't work - it is hopeless. The way that idea writers tend to operate is by trying to create a **coherent path** through this world. For instance, "these 4 or 5 things I have encountered seem to connect together. If we connect them together correctly they form a coherent structure that provides a new [lens](360%20Framing%20and%20Multiple%20Lenses.md) from which we can view our life and take useful action". Now, the landscape that we are operating within is massive. But we don't need to get our arms around all of that. We just need to be able to say: "here is a coherent path. It will take you from one place to somewhere else useful". A key idea about this approach is the importance of having a clearly identified *start* and *end*. So again, you are trying to build a *coherent path* instead of being *comprehensive*. We could state this as: > **Coherency** over **Comprehension**. One way that we constantly see this violated is when people become encyclopedic about certain issues: "There are 15 relevant issues to this main issue. If we go into sub issue 3, sub point 4, sub sub point A, we see this particular argument". In most instances this information is overwhelming and doesn't help. Another issue is that people can petrified: "If I build a path over here, what about the landscape over here and here and here? And what if someone is over in that landscape and they are going to be upset that my path doesn't speak to their landscape?" This is also a quixotic approach. The landscape is vast. The number of ways to think about it is vast. The number of different ways people tend to like to think about it is vast. To try and address everyone - you are probably not equipped to build that map. And it is much more boring. Comprehensiveness can lead to incomprehensibility. --- Date: 20241216 Links to: Tags: References: * [Toxic World Of Social Media: Mental Health, Focus, Stress & Digital Minimalism | Cal Newport - YouTube](https://youtu.be/H1ffjdEl1UM?t=2713)