Professor X's moth-eaten badgers

Title from https://twitter.com/paulgriffini/status/1369608659194544131.

Some essays are written to be long, thoughtful, winding pieces, so you can relax on a Sunday afternoon in your armchair and read the New Yorker: essays with intricate prose and interesting asides and enlivening anecdotes and all sorts of details that bring the story to life; essays which are a pleasure to slowly trace your way through. 

Some essays get to the g-d--n point so you can read what you bleeping want to know and move on with your g-d--n life.

Sometimes the most concise way to write something (without sacrificing understandability or truth or some other desired feature) is to write a long, winding piece that talks about all kinds of things that feel unrelated; on this subject, Paul Graham points out that the Meander river takes the most efficient possible route to the ocean. 

Most of the time, the most concise way to write something is to write a very brief piece with short words and short sentences and few semicolons and possibly even bullet points.

If you write an article about interest rate hikes, and the first two pages are about the decorations in the office of the expert you're interviewing on the subject, that is fine for people who want to spend a relaxing afternoon enjoying The Atlantic. It is incredibly annoying for people who are here just to read the news and be informed citizens.