The Nonwriter's Guide to Writing A Lot
I am writing this as I am listening to Denver by Jack Harlow. I am trying to start writing again, which is ironic given I used to write about my prolific writing habits. It's funny that in this article, the author points out that all of us are now prolific writers if you count our various digital scribbles:
I am writing this as I am listening to Denver by Jack Harlow. I am trying to start writing again, which is ironic given I used to write about my prolific writing habits. It's funny that in this article, the author points out that all of us are now prolific writers if you count our various digital scribbles:
Let’s start with an observation: You are already a prolific writer...if you look at your own correspondence — every email, text, and post, every tweet you’ve cast into the soulless void that is Twitter — you will likely find that you have written more, by this point in your life, than Gandhi’s entire life’s work. You’re an internet user. A netizen; you write more text as an afterthought each day than most people pre-1980 did on purpose.
When I was young, I wrote things I probably shouldn't have shared with the public. It wasn't overly revealing, just not all that good. There's a Jack Harlow line that comes to mind there as well, where he questions all the shit his younger self said in his early work.
These days I share almost nothing with the public, even as I write often. It is weird to say that most of this writing is for me. When I wrote as a younger man, I always imagined how my words would land with an imaginary audience. Now I seem to weigh the words within myself, measuring their resonance within me.
I am proud of that shift, even as I find myself yearning to write more than I do. I am actually happy with how much I write about my persona life. But I find myself yearning to write more about the topics that matter most to me, even if it's only to get them out of my mind.
So here I am writing on Hey World, a platform no one will likely ever read. I like it that way. The pressure is lower here and yet it still feels like I'm publishing. I thought about writing on Beehiiv but I feel pressure to put out something worthwhile there since people actually get notified there. I don't want to annoy people. Nor do I want to create expectations. I would love to do this daily, but I likely won't.
To connect this back to the article of the day, since I'm mostly rambling, I want to lower the friction I feel for writing. I want to write more, in more steps. I want some of my writing to never leave my computer, some to land here, and some to go somewhere more meaningful.