Why write?

Why write? Once I write can I actually also do something very important to me, which is to share what I learn.

“Writing is the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about. Importantly, writing is also the process by which you figure it out.”
~ Shane Parrish

I’m back here after a week or so off from daily posting while I was in Cayman for a funeral and then for a few days on business. So many thoughts and conversations and themes over that time, then yesterday morning I saw the quote above in Shane Parrish’s weekly blog. From today I will recommence my practice of daily writing, as only through writing can I a) figure out what I am talking about, as well as b) discover my thoughts, and c) access my own mind (and for more on those two latter thoughts, see the quotes below)

Of course, only once I write can I actually also do something very important to me, which is to share what I learn, as in: “the whole purpose of life has been to pass on what was learned. There is no higher purpose”. I look forward to sharing with you as things evolve through my practice of writing.

What follows are two more quotes from prior blogs linking to each of the thoughts I have just expressed, some of the key reasons, for me, that answer the question “Why Write?”

“Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.”
~ Joan Didion

Writing to discover your thoughts

Expert writers don’t try to put their thoughts in writing. It’s the opposite that happens. They discover what their thoughts could be by writing. Now, it’s not a mystical phenomenon — those thoughts are already somewhere in you. But you are unable to think about them or to formulate them, without going through the writing step.

It’s a funny phenomenon to experience. You pay attention to something that strikes you as interesting, you try to put into words this vague impression you have, and you find yourself unfolding, word after word, an observation that is much richer than the initial insight that got you started.

After going down that path again and again, and seeing how what you ended up writing is systematically better than what you wanted to write about, you get into the habit of writing, just to know what you are thinking.

Remi Guyot