Why Write?

Today, I decided I should start writing - writing in a blog specifically. This is actually partly false; I’ve mused about the idea for some time. It took me a while to get around to it due to the following hesitations:

My first image

As it turns out, the sheer boredom induced by the current stay-at-home/quarantine/pleasereducether0 situation has given me sufficient motivation to write this post. Furthermore, I will attempt to answer the hesitations I stated above.

Am I special?

No.

Do I have thoughts?

Yes.

And is this worth…

YES.

I’ve come to understand that one of the greatest benefits of writing is that it forces me to think my thoughts rigorously to their logical conclusions. That might sound like something a functional adult should do normally, but bear with me.

As humans, we are predisposed to making decisions based on all available information, past and present. Any holes in that information is filled with assumptions that are mostly informed by…biases. Writing allows (forces) you to write all that information and all those biases down and then stare at them before deciding that you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. This is in contrast to keeping thoughts in your head - it’s hard to keep track of the process by which you’re forming conclusions. Consequently, it’s easy to convince yourself that you’ve followed a line of thinking to it’s rational conclusion when you’ve forgotten where that line started and how it progressed.

I’ve discovered the significance of this fact in my work as a software engineer. I have a poor habit of ad-hoc’ing solutions to problems without following a plan or procedure. This does not play well with software systems - these systems have bottlenecks and edge cases and puzzling behavior. This is a minefield on which bad assumptions get ‘sploded very quickly. Do-it-as-you-go problem solving results in an arduous trial and error, ground and pound approach - ok, it seemed to work for Marshawn - that really just takes you one step closer to burning out than a planned and carefully thought out approach. In particular, writing down assumptions before you solve a problem makes a huge difference in the correctness of your solutions. I have started to take extremely in-depth notes about the context of my problem. This allows me to quickly identify areas that I am uncertain, or have no idea about. That is to say, this allows me to separate actual, correct information from biases and shaky assumptions. This routine is essential to coming up with solutions that are logical and comprehensible.

The advantages of writing extend beyond the workplace too. Writing down your values, dreams, insecurities, and fears allows you to prioritize what matters in your life, and deprioritize things that don’t. It is simply too difficult to categorize your base emotions in an objective way until you’re staring at them on a piece of paper in 3rd person. In other words, writing is a fantastic way to let out your anxieties about yourself and the world and then hopefully after a few rereads, a way to figure those anxieties were misguided after all (at least for a little while).

Finally, I believe writing is a way to express gratitude for things often taken for granted (health, family, girlfriend, friends, pizza). You sometimes don’t know how much you appreciate something till you write about it - again, this is the perspective shaping effect of writing.

Anyway, I’m hoping that I continue to write in this blog, not so I become famous, but so I become a better person.

#writing