writing is thinking
I find the literal process of writing helps organize my thoughts from a jumble of mostly incoherent fragments into something that someone else can actually understand. For me, just the act of putting words on a page really solidifies the thought and also lets me double check my logic. If I’m trying to learn something new, taking notes is great because then I have to prove to myself that I really know something. It’s very easy to just plaster over vague understandings when you’re holding concepts in your head like, “yeah yeah i know what that means”, but when you actually write it down and look back at it, its immediately obvious whether or not you actually have a grasp of the subject.
daily journaling
Building a habit of writing daily was something I started in 2025. I prefer to do this with pen and paper, specifically a Pilot G-2 0.5mm and a Leuchtturm1917 A6 notebook. I typically start my day by setting aside 10-15 minutes to stream of consciousness write, just to get the mental juices flowing a bit. I find that it straightens out some of the knots of thought in my head and place a lens of clarity in front of my vision for the day. Why pen and paper? I really believe there’s something to intentionally slowing down, and carefully writing each letter, each word on paper that calms the mind and lets you breathe. It’s like meditation. A nice departure from the constant stress and rush of the real world. I highly recommend you try it, take joy in finding a pen and notebook you like, try out many different methods and find the one that works for you.
essays
The form of the essay is perfect for expounding on deeper thoughts. It’s like, when you have a really good late night conversation with a friend, transcribed into text. In fact, I think that literally is a writing technique. Personally, I enjoy reading essays, I feel like it gives you a more intimate window into the mind of someone else. As opposed to fiction/nonfiction, essays feel like they have more freedom. Often I feel the urge to write an essay on a piece of wisdom or piece of my understanding about something about the world, and writing allows me to think about the idea, and see if it makes sense. It’s like spellcheck for an idea.
beliefs are reached in the course of writing, and essays trace the course. “How do I know what I mean until I hear what I say?” is the familiar line. But its opposite is also true: How do I know what I don’t mean until I hear what I say? Essays let you second-guess yourself, even contradict yourself in front of the reader. Self-doubt, fatal in so many enterprises, fortifies the essay. — from Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd
The feeling I get when I write essays is very similar to the feeling you get when you’ve had a few and spent some time chatting with good buddies around a table, and the conversation starts to get philosophical. It’s that exact feeling that I love and I get a similar feeling when I’m writing my thoughts.
“Essays often gain authority from a particular sensibility’s fresh apprehension of generalized wisdom. But the point is not to brush aside the particular in favor of the general, not to make everything a grand idea, but to treat something specific with such attention that it magnifies into significance.” — from Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd