Why write?

organizing a life, yelling into the void

Edit: Republished because Substack went bork (?)

So I’ve decided to start a Substack. I’ve seen several eye-opening pieces here, and the virtue of association with them seems good. I know that the platform has its issues, but Substack still seems like a cool concept that I can get behind, for now. I thought Kara Swisher’s interview with Substack’s Chris Best was interesting enough. I’m too lazy, or too busy, to actually code something up at the moment. And I guess I can always move. (For the record, Kara Swisher is my current obsession. Go figure.)

I’ve wanted to write regularly for a long time now—at least a year—but I never took the leap. In the past few months, I’ve decided to clean up my life and do what I want: code and write. I’ve been coding, and now I’m writing. I even started using Google Calendar.

For those of you who’ve read my attempts at blogging in the past (Silly Bird v1, v2), the tone of this Substack—if I manage to make this a regular thing—will be quite different. This is mostly because my goal in creating this is not to vent and talk about myself, but to try to create something that is of value¹ even if you don’t really know me or care about me. It will be a mix of thoughts, technical things, and maybe a little bit of creative stuff. I’m going to try to write once every 2-3 weeks, but I love overloading myself with work, so we’ll see.

On that note, 16-year-olds aren’t generally renowned for their insight. And I read webtoons, not books², so who knows where I’ll draw material from.

But: nothing to lose, after all.

Today I want to write about why I’m writing. I guess this post will be rather embarrassing if I never get around to finishing a second one, but here’s to hope I do.

Writing changes the way you think

The Beauty of 78.5 Million Followers by Vanessa Grigoriadis begins:

In college, in the 1990s, I was very into the cultural critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin. He said reproducing something in a photo devalued it. So, I… didn’t get a camera. I just refused to be a person who walked around with a camera. I thought taking pictures was really gauche. And, as a result, I don’t have any pictures of anyone I knew or myself from this time. Which, kinda sucks. I looked great.

I oftentimes feel the same way with my thoughts. I’ll be obsessed with an idea and see it everywhere for a few weeks, and then I will slowly forget about it. In the meanwhile, I feel apprehensive to write about it, whether for lack of appropriate outlets or the false sense of security that it will remind in my mind forever. Yet it quickly fades amidst the thousands of thoughts that pass through my mind each day. Rarely, I will write it down, and then two years down the line I get to experience the unparalleled satisfaction of rediscovering an old darling of mine. Whenever I think about the number of interesting ideas I’ve had that I’ve lost to the depths, I always wish I’d written them down somewhere.

Critically, though, writing is more than just an act of recording. Writing is creative. In particular, while writing, you get to curate the best of your stream of thought onto a piece of paper, which allows you to build upon your best, and not just whatever you can remember. It’s also one of those things, like walking or showering³, that pull you out of the rushing flows of everyday life and into stillness so you can hear yourself think. And while your thoughts are inflected with an internal, emotional tone—nostalgia, giddiness—the written word has no tone. So you’re forced to stretch the limits of your language, to use words, and only words, to bring to light those feelings in your heart.

Recently, I’ve realized that the most illuminative writing—at least from the writer’s standpoint—is writing you don’t want to do. When you’re not writing the low-hanging fruit, when you consciously avoid the well-developed ideas in your mind. When you sit in front of the screen⁴ and stare and have no idea what to write. Then you have to reflect and dig deeper. As opposed to the alternative, there’s some risk when you’re writing about something you haven’t think about much: it might flop. But sometimes, with a little force—despite how unromantic it sounds—something wonderful, and new, emerges.

As a corollary, it might be true that the most interesting writing one can produce isn’t even about themselves. We just finished reading A Mercy by Toni Morrison in my English class and I took the liberty of reading a bit more about her; she believed that the ultimate test of a writer’s ability was to write not about the self:

I tell my students; I tell everybody this. When I begin a creative writing class I say, 'I know you've heard all your life, "Write what you know." Well I am here to tell you, "You don't know nothing. So do not write what you know. Think up something else. Write about a young Mexican woman working in a restaurant and can't speak English. Or write about a famous mistress in Paris who's down on her luck.

Putting yourself out there

In my recent journey to finally not being friendless in real life, I’ve discovered a multitude of things which are stupidly obvious. One of them is that people like people who make them feel good. So while socially-anxious, self-absorbed me is fretting in the corner that no one likes her, everyone else is slightly miffed that she has no interest in talking to them. Thus, they avoid her.

Ack.

I hate this dynamic, but it requires a lot of mental gymnastics and strength to re-orient from the anxious mindset. Having said that, part of me objects that the most critical ingredient is probably empathy. Pain begets pain—social anxiety makes you fold into yourself in an unappealing way to those around you.

A good general rule I’ve found so far is to simply reach out more. People generally like attention. Enthusiasm for someone, as long as it is genuine, is not offensive unless overdone.⁵ Then again, socially anxious people don’t really tend to overdo enthusiasm. Embracing my natural liking of people has been probably the best thing I’ve done for my social life over the past few months.

So, in the spirit of talking a bit more to the world in the hope that it talks back, I’m deliberately making this a public project. It’s not exactly the same as reaching out to the people who I want to cultivate relationships with; as much as I would like to pretend otherwise, this small space here is mostly just me, me, and me, but it’s something. Ultimately, though, I think talking to someone gives you a much better picture of who they are then what they write, so maybe what I’m really hoping you’ll do is hit me up and talk to me. I’ll like talking to you, probably.⁶

1. Ironically, this is probably the least useful section of this post. The preface still feels necessary, though.

2. I also uninstalled Reddit again, so [audio]book recommendations are appreciated. Podcasts okay too.

3. Obligatory reference to this classic.

4. I wonder if there’s a meaningful difference between writing in front of a screen, and writing on paper. I’ve always been too impatient to do the latter, but it might alter the mechanics of thought in a meaningful way. There’s a lot more interesting things one could say about that—the effect of the mechanics of writing—but I guess that’s a topic for another day.

5. As my mom likes to say, a bit of mystery makes you more attractive.

6. I am leaving Andover on June 4th, so if you are in the Boston area anytime between right now and June 4th exclusive, come visit me! Besides yours truly, the greatest attraction of Andover, there is also Andover’s campus which is exceptionally beautiful. It does have to be socially distanced and outside though.