Writing Is Indeed Magic

Writing is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is

I really enjoy reading Marc Brooker’s blog. He is a Principal Software Engineer at AWS who mostly blogs about distributed systems. Once in a while, he gives really good advice and insights that are applicable to almost anyone. One article that particularly stands out to me is this one on writing is magic. I find myself coming back to read this again because it reminds me so much of why I started writing online in the first place.

Writing is thinking. Writing is the most efficient tool to structure your thoughts. The human brain can only hold so much information before you start to feel overwhelmed. When this happens, that is my cue to grab my pen — well, my keyboard. I love the quote from Marc’s article: “Writing is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is.” I cannot count how many times some decisions made sense in my head but after writing them down, I immediately realized how terrible they really were. It becomes so glaring once the words appear on paper. To me, this is the difference between people who sound smart and those who don’t. The smart ones have taken time to refine their ideas over and over outside of their head on paper before you get to hear a single word.

I also love what he says about people reading a document you wrote. For those few minutes, it forces them to stop and be quiet. You welcome them into your mind and invite them to listen to your thoughts — which is very similar to people reading your blog online. This is also why putting effort into clear written communication is so important. Clumsy writing and hard-to-read sentences will make them shut you out.

Reading that article reminded me of why I started sharing my thoughts online in the first place. Writing clears your thinking and is the next best thing to magic. Let this remind you to go out and write, even if it’s just a few sentences. The world is waiting to hear your opinion.