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I like the idea of writing to sort out my thoughts. I've been doing this for years in email with a couple friends. We've sent about 15,000 emails back and for
by bkovitz 17y ago
I like the idea of writing to sort out my thoughts. I've been doing this for years in email with a couple friends. We've sent about 15,000 emails back and forth so far. Writing those brainstorming emails happens naturally because I know who I'm writing for. I know what they care about and how they think, and I see ways to move their minds in ways they'd find enjoyable.
What I mean by "a purpose" is to affect an audience somehow. I don't normally write "for myself". Writing, at least the way I experience it, is translation: here's how the reader currently understands things, here's some content, now invent a way to make that content comprehensible in terms of that way of understanding. Of course, doing this translation leads to improved insight into the subject matter, just as writing a program leads to improved insight into the problem domain.
- DanielBMarkham 17y agoI'm currently doing a "Does God Exist?" series of posts because, well, the argument interests me. So I took a bunch of books on all sides of the issue and am going through each of them, writing a quick review as I complete each book (along with a recap) I've found that the act of making yourself physically write something on paper makes you remember better. This effect is amplified if you're trying to explain it to somebody else in an essay. So the blog is kind of a mind "power tool", enabling me to sort through tons of debate and get to the few arguments and insights that matter to me. On top of that, it'll be around next year when I've forgotten a lot of the detail, keeping the "good parts" near the top of my cognitive heap. (not stack)