Tldr to be honest. I kinda clashed right with the premisse: "How to write useful" and "What should an essay be?" are basically conflicting things in some way.

Tldr to be honest. I kinda clashed right with the premisse: "How to write useful" and "What should an essay be?" are basically conflicting things in some way. Didn't pg also have an essay on what an essay is and came to the conclusion that an essay is meant to explore a topic for oneself? But could also be that I read this somewhere else. So, an essay is for the writer to explore stuff and have interested readers go along. But useful writing is for the reader only. If pg had cut this essay to less than 500 words (and I bet this could've been done without losing information), it'd been a lot more useful, although probably not an "essay" anymore.