The Best Time to Start Writing

I started this blog because I want to write. I want to write so that I can explore ideas, capture fleeting thoughts, and share stories that move me. You may wonder, in the era of large language models, isn't writing, at best, a niche hobby, and at worst, a waste of time? I don't think so. Let me explain.

Clarity of Thought

One of the catalysts of my writing journey is an essay by Paul Graham that paints a bleak picture of those unable to write:

So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too.

Dear Paul Graham, thank you for calling me out.

As someone with a proclivity for mathematics, physics, and computer science, I have often (unfairly) dismissed writing as something to get over with; a chore; the "real" work was in the equations or the code, not in the words. It didn't help that writing was often the most boring and tedious part. For a long time, I associated the value of writing mainly with the outcome, whether it be an essay or a publication.

More and more, I have been realizing that most of the value of writing lies in the process. If an idea cannot be expressed clearly in writing, it's probably not a good one [1]. Written ideas are more concrete and thus easier to challenge. Note that passing this "written clarity test" is necessary but not sufficient: the idea could be clear in writing and still be bad. Still, it will rule out a lot of bad ideas.

Writing will not only lead to better ideas, but also to more of them. Paul Graham makes this point well:

[…] writing is not just a way to convey ideas, but also a way to have them. […] A good writer will almost always discover new things in the process of writing.

Writing this essay was no exception.

To and For Myself

I am writing to my future self but for my present self. If others enjoy my writing, it is a bonus.

By writing at different points in time, I want to give my future self snapshots of what I thought about, how I thought, and how this has changed over time. I wish I had essays by my younger self that I could read now. I vaguely recall some of the things I thought about at (say) 18, but perhaps this is merely what I think I was thinking. The Chinese proverb "The palest ink is better than the best memory" describes it well. For my present self, I write to sharpen my thoughts, challenge my ideas and come up with better ones, and express what moves me.

Ironically, now might be the best time to write precisely because soon we may never need to.

[1] A special case is when we lack the language to convey an idea. The writer would have to learn the language to express the idea or, in rare cases, expand the language.