Why I chose ambiguity over clarity when inviting connection
I was crafting a short introduction for a creative community recently when I found myself lingering over a single line, returning to it again and again like a stone in my shoe.
Two versions sat before me:
I’m always happy to connect with those creating with curiosity and purpose—on any path.
I’m always happy to connect with those on any path toward meaningful creation.
Then the question slipped in, uninvited:
Isn’t every creation meaningful?
It stopped me cold.
Because part of me believes yes—every act of creation carries its own significance, even if that meaning remains private, quiet, invisible even to its maker.
At first, “curiosity and purpose” felt like open doors. After all, who doesn’t value those things? But the longer I sat with it, the more I saw them as velvet ropes— gentle, but selective. They suggested those were the right reasons to create, quietly pushing aside anyone whose work emerges from different wells: instinct without strategy, joy without mission, grief too deep to explain, or even the raw sacred chaos of making something simply because you had to.
“Meaningful creation,” though? That phrase felt slippery at first, almost deliberately elusive. Yet it does something generous: it hands the definition back to the reader. It trusts them to know what carries weight in their own creative life.
It honors the dignity of self-definition. And that feels more true to me.
So I chose:
I’m always happy to connect with those on any path toward meaningful creation.
And I left the interpretation where it belongs. With the reader.
Here’s what I’m wondering:
When we reach for connection, what signals do our words send?
Does a sentence ever mean only what it says?
Where in your language do you leave room for others to define meaning?
And if this were your line—what would it say?
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