And yeah, sometimes I think I need to grate people the wrong way to get them to pay attention. (Reply)

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” –Mark Twain
.-= Laura C´s last blog ..Two Simple Ways To Become a Freelance Editor =-. (Reply)

The more general case I’m trying to make is that reflective creation is necessary for penetrating insight. I stand by that point.

I would stand by that statement as well.

Cultures that lacked writing were uniformly less advanced technologically, and often culturally as well.

Thought (in the case of your post, writing is thought) != advanced technology; advanced technology is a result of the rational thought process.

Advanced culture? Advancement is a comparison of where they are in relation to where we are; which is silly, thought as an object is only comparable within the context of its social system – language is one way of expressing that comparison.

I do not call my mother less advanced culturally or intellectually because she cannot write Python scripts to automatically sort her email… However, within the programmer/hacker culture, she would be compared as less advanced in terms of programming and computer systems knowledge. Context is important to remember, especially when dealing with cultures, societies, and conventions alien to the paradigm one operates within.

Judging one thing as less than another because it does not use the same conventions for self-expression is limiting.

they were made possible by writing.

I would rephrase that as: they were made possible by thought and employed the tool of writing to express the formulated thought (whether prosaic, mathematical, logical, artful, etc.).

The point was to light a fire under those people who are perpetually “meaning” to write, but never actually do it.

Then why not write about what lights your fire or what topics inspire you to write. What self-reflective states of mind induce your writing? These things, examples, are a statement – a communication – of who you are. Not what someone else is not or is lacking.

The post could be titled: Self-reflective writing for penetrative insight. A much better epithet for what your stated intention is.

I also think the post would be much more efficacious had your secondary intention been to “be original”. (Reply)

Sorry for the rant. I had to get that off my shoulders. (Reply)

Further, the intention of the article was not to be original, or to highlight some special skill I personally have. The point was to light a fire under those people who are perpetually “meaning” to write, but never actually do it. Judging by the considerable response, I suspect I achieved my goal.

It’s hardly scientific, but every person I’ve ever met who thinks deeply, also writes regularly. Separately, the people I’ve met who do not write and do not care to write, have never once in my experience been deep thinkers.

One corollary though. Commenters have pointed out rightly that writing can take many forms, and that disregarding those forms in this essay for the sake of succinctity was perhaps not wise. They may be right, so let me just say for the record:

Writing takes many forms, prose being only one of them. Math, programming, certain visual art, certain music, and I’m sure other expressions that aren’t coming to mind are equally valid in recording our short term memory for the purpose of reflection, expansion, and perhaps completion. The more general case I’m trying to make is that reflective creation is necessary for penetrating insight. I stand by that point. (Reply)

Writing is a representation of thought, an expression of thought. As you said it, writing is a skill, it requires thinking to write. You must think to talk, create art, sing, make music, etc… Human expression is derived from the desire to express thought and its varied substance.

If you’ve never written anything thoughtful, then you’ve never had any difficult, important, or interesting thoughts. That’s the secret: people who don’t write, are people who don’t think.

Really? That is a bold statement to make in light of cultures that do not “write”. What of the dialectic sessions in Greece and Rome? What of people who do have original thought but may not have had the “social conditioning” (yes, language is a social standard) to clearly express those thoughts?

The premises of your argument on memory are also flawed. There are many thoughts I’ve held for many years that I haven’t gotten around to codifying in an essay or article – but I still think them and expand upon them. What do you think people did before they had the tools or standards to write? They re-membered.

This very article, of which you intended to inspire original and interesting thought is the opposite. This article lacks originality, is short-sighted, shallow, and uninteresting. Your logic is faulty.

In short: your chain of logic (thought) is broken and your expression of it is exact.

Writing is a social standard, a standard for other participants of the social hive to understand you and vice-versa. Lucid writing is just a higher degree of accuracy in the representation of what one was thinking, observing, or relaying.

Here’s a writing exercise for people who want to start thinking

Again you are supercilious in this statement. Maybe you should take the time to stop writing and instead, think.

Matter of fact, that is a good exercise: stop talking and writing, think. Meditate on your own thoughts. (Reply)

Not quite.

Talking is also thinking.

You can have “difficult”, “important” and “interesting” conversations, therefore thoughts.

In fact, one could argue that discussing is more important than writing. (Reply)

While it may be true that writing assists in the organization of thinking, the true value comes from the fact that writing is distilled thought which is permanently recorded in a form which can be communicated to another human being.

Writing is communication, which requires intense thinking. Like many parts of your body the more you exercise your brain the more proficient it becomes. In this way practiced writers become good thinkers.

Samuel Butler said “A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.” Using words and language to define things is often times detrimental to the vastness of true thought. It also takes a lot longer to write something down than it takes to think it.

Therefore, writing is not thinking, but writing frequently does make you a better thinker. (Reply)

Then it dawned on me. Programming is a very precise form of putting your ideas into writing. As I write a computer program, I have to work through my ideas or those of my employer until they are concrete enough for a computer to execute.

Like you said, there is no way for me to fully comprehend a complete computer program all at once. So it is with a big idea. To flesh it out, you really do have to put it in writing.
.-= Tom Leys´s last blog ..Selling the Dream, putting Sales before Software =-. (Reply)

This post was mentioned on Twitter by PeteMichaud: New Essay: The secret about writing that no one has the balls to tell you http://bit.ly/8SjAGf… (Reply)

Yes. How do I fix this? (Reply)