Want to Start Writing? Here’s Why You Should
“I would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station.” — Alexander Hamilton
Writing isn’t to win an award or gain people’s admiration. It isn’t to prove how clever you are or what you know. It isn’t to land yourself in popular magazines or tell people at cocktail parties about your ability to put words on paper. Writing is more important than any of these things. It’s a tool to improve your station.
If you can write, think and communicate, people will pay you money. But the true bread and butter of prose is in your mind. The better you are at putting words on paper, the better you are at understanding your thinking, its flaws, and how to improve it.
When clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson talks about conversation, he explains its use as a tool for humans to declutter their brains. “We outsource the problem of our sanity,” he says, because speaking out loud lets us see if our ideas are socially acceptable and tolerable. If we didn’t do this we’d be overwhelmed hoarders of unvetted internal information. If oral language is a tool to declutter our minds to deal with the world, then written language is the tool to declutter the mind to deal with itself.
While we’re speaking or writing, we’re simultaneously omitting and acknowledging what’s useful from our memories. We’re re-organizing events that have taken place and either keeping or letting go of ideas and information that isn’t useful. After this process we can move forward with a new explanation of events and reconstruct our futures based on the information that was useful from the past.
As we write we’re bringing our ideas to a physical space where we can add, delete, and rearrange our thoughts. This is the editing process is. It’s our opportunity to spot mistakes, fix errors, and get rid of what isn’t working — both in writing and in thinking. If others are reading our writing or working as editors, even better.
Through writing we’re also able to chronicle our thinking over periods of time. We can see where we’ve grown and changed, which helps us to become more refined and improved. We have clear evidence of where we’re missing the mark and falling short, because don’t be fooled — getting better at writing takes a tremendous amount of time. It could be months or years before you see subtle improvements — even if you’re writing every day.
Why Think Critically? To Win!
“The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals…” — James Monroe
Being able to think and being able to write are two pieces of the same puzzle. And critical thinking is our weapon to defend ourselves in the world. If we can write and think and speak, we are formidable opponents.
We shouldn’t be paranoid or afraid, but the world is a dangerous place. People are willing to take advantage of you and they have the capacity to subtly exert power over you. It doesn’t take brute force for others to manipulate or hide disingenuity behind the facade of good will. We should be aware what others are capable of and how they accomplish their aims through language. When people are especially clever or quick with words, they can back you into unexpected corners where your lesser senses might say or do things that they shouldn’t.
Writing is only one of the tools to sharpen your tongue. Other tools include learning and dialogue. With all of these we can cultivate the ability to hold our ground and watch our back in the world. Self-defense might be as simple as clarifying an idea when we’re misunderstood, as important as standing up for ourselves when something false is said or someone tries to take advantage of us with words, and language is the tool to nail a job interview or negotiate the price when we make a big purchase.
Many aspects of our lives are negotiations. Those who can do it best live lives closest to what they aim for. And on the other hand, there are good battles to be fought in the world. The world is a place ripe with problems to be fixed. How we’re capable of writing and thinking impacts what good we can contribute to the world.
But Don’t Forget, It’s Hard
Writing is a craft that should be approached honestly and humbly. It’s difficult, time consuming, and subjective. What one person determines to be clever writing can greatly differ from what someone else enjoys. For this reason, and many others, it’s difficult to make a career as a writer. There’s exceptions like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling (though they, too, weren’t always just writers), but most writers have multiple sources of income or don’t exclusively work as writers. Some of them are marketers, journalists, teachers, or work other day jobs to pay for their craft. Lots of famed writers weren’t people who lived off of their writing while they were doing it either. For many it took years or they didn’t gain notoriety until after they died. Some of them were even vagabonds.
One perfect anecdote is that of John Kennedy Toole. His book A Confederacy of Dunceswas continuously turned down by publishers. This devastated him so greatly that he committed suicide. After his death, Toole’s mother lobbied for his book to be published and it went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. This a shining example of the arbitrariness of writing, publishing, and market trends. The book wasn’t any different before or after his death — but only after did it gain its following.
Whether or not a book or piece of writing catches wind is often arbitrary and based on forces outside of a writer’s control. As pleasant as the idea of “going viral” is, not even with the best marketing and PR schemes is that guaranteed. Sometimes the world itself works against a writer. According to Ryan Holiday, Michael Lewis and Robert Greene both had books that came out a week before September 11, an unlikely and unpredictable event that changed everything for them, and the world. (These random events are known as Black Swans and written about by Nassim Taleb in his book of the same name.)
But if you do hit the lottery like a Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, Nassim Taleb points out that “a writer expends the same effort to attract one single reader as she would to capture several hundred million.” Not many careers are like this. Bakers have to bake for every customers, but a writer’s one bout of effort, if successful, is permanent.
If you get paid for words in any capacity, you should count yourself lucky and be grateful. You’re among the blessed. Writing is a human function that we all do. In the age of social media, even those who don’t read or write in a traditional sense are writing texts and social media updates. And professionals in any field must write emails, messenger communications, presentations. So never forget your fortunate if people pay you for words.
Writing is an Investment in Your Future
The return on your investment comes from honing your critical thinking skills, learning how to argue and make sense of the world, and participating in a productive use of time. So before you aim at traveling the world on speaking gigs or etching your name among the greats, remember what writing is — it’s to improve your station.
According to Georgetown professor Cal Newport, we live in age that needs workers who can perform long bouts of intense and focused work, what he calls Deep Work in his book of the same name. If we can become deep workers, we’re taking advantage of a market opportunity. Writing is that opportunity to improve at Deep Work. But anyone who’s written anything will tell you, the writing never looks on paper what was imagined in the writer’s head. Getting serviceable words takes a few round of edits and the painstaking process of deleting content that you like. Stephen King advises, “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
Alas, when you write you’ll quickly realize that no one cares about your words as much as you think they do. You aren’t as smart or talented or gifted as you assumed. And any audience, even if it’s just your friends, are quick to point out errors or ignore your writing altogether. This isn’t a reason to be discouraged, but a humble reminder that we should never aim for attention. We should pursue what we pursue because we love the process and we’re working toward goals for our own sake. Plus, humility builds character and thicker skin. Who can’t use a little bit of that?
Writing is a task that asks for your effort. It’s grueling. It will force you to think. But don’t forget, it’s quite a bit of fun! So cheers to you and your next project that aims at playing with words on your laptop or typewriter or piece of paper.
