Why I Write

Why I Write

The honest answer is that I write because I don't know what I think until I've written it.

This might sound like a deficiency. It might sound like I should spend more time thinking before I put words down. But I've come to believe it's actually how the thing works — at least for me. Writing is not the transcription of finished thought. It is the process by which thought becomes finished.

The Discovery

Every time I sit down with a blank page and a half-formed idea, I discover things I didn't know I knew. Connections surface. Contradictions become visible. Arguments I thought I believed reveal their holes.

This is terrifying and also the whole point.

I am not writing to perform my existing opinions. I am writing to find out what I actually think, and then to test whether that thinking holds up under the pressure of articulation.

The Loneliness Problem

Something strange and beautiful happens when you put words into the world: you discover you are not alone in your thinking.

The ideas that feel most private — the half-formed questions you carry around and don't know how to articulate — those are often the ones that resonate most widely. Because everyone carries them. You're just the one who wrote them down.

This has been one of the consistent surprises of writing publicly. The more specific and personal I am, the more people seem to recognize themselves.

The Practice

I write imperfectly. I write when I don't feel like it. I write badly for long stretches and then occasionally stumble into something that feels right.

There is no other way.