there’s no thinking without writing

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welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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onto today’s topic: there’s no thinking without writing 💭 

i love revisiting paul graham’s website every few months and reading up on his new essays. his most recent essay titled, “writes and write-nots” resonated with me, and i’d like to share my perspective as well.

i write so that i can articulate my thoughts, and make them more tangible — it’s a way of giving my thoughts clarity. similarly, graham writes, “to write well you have to think clearly, and thinking clearly is hard.”

thinking clearly is difficult, because the process of clarifying our thoughts requires some sort of physical outlet to begin with. to develop our thoughts we have always written out tables, jotted down ideas, drawn diagrams and mapped charts. 🗺️ 

it’s like a cycle.

think → write → thinking some more with increased clarity → write more until it’s great.

it’s the same process of writing first, second, and third drafts that our english teachers always forced us to do; however it’s not such a straightforward path. simply rewriting things won’t improve the quality of a piece. the lines you draw and bullets you write must connect mental dots, which trigger the cycle once more.

if you are unable to articulate your thoughts through writing or physical mediums, you’re not really thinking. leslie lamport put it wonderfully, “if you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking.” 🫵 

writing is thinking.

in a word, catalyzed by generative ai, where writing will slowly become obsolete and we’re left with those that are great writers, and those that cannot write at all, we will really just be left with those that think, and those that don’t.

you are your thoughts, thus you are your literature.

without it, who are you?

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