Write in Public

The clearest thinking doesn’t happen in our heads but on the page.

Despite constant internal dialogue, our most coherent thoughts emerge only when we write them down—a contradiction that reveals something fundamental about how human cognition works.

This act of clarification isn't merely personal; it's simultaneously an act of cultural participation. When you write, you're not just organizing your thoughts; you're contributing to our collective understanding, adding your unique perspective to a shared pool of knowledge. In a time when institutional voices increasingly dominate public discourse and those institutions are becoming less reliable, individual writing and commitment to rigorous thought become intellectual discipline and civic responsibility.

And so, you too should write.

Be it a journal or a personal blog.

What you write about doesn’t matter, though I encourage you to write widely and often.

Writing helps you clarify your ideas. Writing teaches and shows me much about what I know and don’t know. It’s one thing to think a thought— which lasts mere moments and flits from one to the next; it’s another to try to describe and outline it in 500 words or more. Writing out your ideas forces form to what was previously nothing more than shadows cast on a wall.

Writing becomes particularly important (and useful) if you consume a lot of media; it’s easy to feel informed after having scrolled Instagram or Xitter for the last hour and consumed a half dozen news articles. But when you take all that and try to write out what it means in your own words, you’ll start to find holes and gaps and quickly learn that your sense of knowledge or critical thinking is more likely just a feeling.

Writing, then, is a way to separate the chaff from the wheat, a way to learn what you actually know from what you think you know.

This applies to all thinking, not just having novel ideas. Feelings are a type of thought.

Do you feel anxious? Write about it. Make yourself explain your fears and worries, their causes, their possible outcomes, and where they could lead you. You’ll often find one of two things happen—

1. You find that your fear or anxiety is less valuable in practice than it felt— that fear of catastrophic ruin is a worry about an unplanned expense.

2. You will feel like you used your fear or anxiety productively by giving it form and yourself a plan. By taking your thinking from the abstract to the concrete, you fill in gaps and become oriented to solving rather than just ruminating.

Journaling is a great way to develop a mindfulness practice. It is also a good way to work out your values. If you have never written them out, odds are your values are not as solid as you think. Write them out.

But it’s writing in public spaces in particular that I want to encourage you to do.

Writing sharpens thinking and is a good way to share ideas, and I want you to share more of yours.

The marketplace of ideas is a real thing. Every day, there is a battle that takes place to occupy mindshare. Every day, you get told what you think, what to believe, and what is happening in the world. And if there is a battle to tell you what you should think, remember that this same battle occurs for others— and many bad ideas are being pushed on people. The marketplace of ideas is everywhere; it happens on social media, in the news, even among your friends.

But more than that, you are helping create knowledge commons outside of traditional institutions, which I believe is necessary. When institutions begin to self-censor, writing becomes an act of preserving intellectual freedom. You're helping create shared intellectual resources that exist outside institutional gatekeeping. This distributed production of ideas creates resilience in our social fabric—when narrative power is concentrated in a few hands, society becomes brittle and vulnerable to manipulation.

Your writing, however modest it may seem, can help counterbalance this centralization by creating alternative perspectives others can draw upon, evaluate, and build with.

So, you should look to actively participate in the marketplace of ideas and create knowledge commons. Be someone with a viewpoint; get skin in the game. Fight for your ideas; don’t just be content being told what to think. Start a blog or write video scripts and post them to reels.

In the age of “content,” where chatGPT can spit out serviceable material in under 30 seconds, learning how to write is an act of human rebellion.

And if you are worried—

“My ideas aren’t good enough.”

“I’m not smart enough.”

“I can’t write, it’s too hard”

As someone who has experienced the same struggles, I can confidently tell you that your ideas are better than you think, you’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, and writing isn’t as hard as people make it out to be; you just have to commit to doing it.

Finally, there are so many other people out there today producing video scripts and reels and writing blog posts and articles who have much worse ideas and values than you do, and they do it with absolute confidence.

So, write. 📝