Write for others but mostly for yourself (2022)(jack-vanlightly.com)
jack-vanlightly.com
Write for others but mostly for yourself (2022)
https://jack-vanlightly.com/blog/2022/1/25/write-for-others-but-mostly-for-yourself
46 comments
The past few years have been a really wild journey for me that have led me to lean heavily into text and writing things down, like everything, all the time.
Here are a bunch of things I've learned in no specific order.
* Writing engages the pre-frontal cortex and suppresses activity in the amygdala. Net psychological effect of this is you become more rational, more methodical, more relaxed, less anxious/fearful
* Cognitive behavioral therapy has the best evidence for efficacy among the "talk therapies," and it's pretty much just a framework for writing down your negative assumptions and analyzing them, this helps you figure out which ones are correct and which ones aren't
* Certain software tools are essentially just environments which lower the friction of working with text buffers, emacs is probably the purest example of this philosophy, any code editor is an example, so are the 'second brain' apps like Obsidian or logseq, arguably a terminal is also an example
* Things we write when transformed to the correct format can change the outside world, e.g. you wrote down a piece of information and then later formatted it as an email or a blog post or as some code which you deployed and now the world outside is closer to what you want it to be, these transformations are potentially macros that you've written in text and versioned somewhere.
It's a radically different approach to thinking and computing than the mental model most people are walking around with in their head. Thinking as writing and writing as execution. Everything starts in the brain, write it down and loosely organize it, over time transform it into your work products, communication with others etc. We are simply moving thoughts down the pipeline from brain to reality, all through the same process, same simple set of tools etc. It is very very powerful for producing high quality ideas and outcomes in my experience.
Here are a bunch of things I've learned in no specific order.
* Writing engages the pre-frontal cortex and suppresses activity in the amygdala. Net psychological effect of this is you become more rational, more methodical, more relaxed, less anxious/fearful
* Cognitive behavioral therapy has the best evidence for efficacy among the "talk therapies," and it's pretty much just a framework for writing down your negative assumptions and analyzing them, this helps you figure out which ones are correct and which ones aren't
* Certain software tools are essentially just environments which lower the friction of working with text buffers, emacs is probably the purest example of this philosophy, any code editor is an example, so are the 'second brain' apps like Obsidian or logseq, arguably a terminal is also an example
* Things we write when transformed to the correct format can change the outside world, e.g. you wrote down a piece of information and then later formatted it as an email or a blog post or as some code which you deployed and now the world outside is closer to what you want it to be, these transformations are potentially macros that you've written in text and versioned somewhere.
It's a radically different approach to thinking and computing than the mental model most people are walking around with in their head. Thinking as writing and writing as execution. Everything starts in the brain, write it down and loosely organize it, over time transform it into your work products, communication with others etc. We are simply moving thoughts down the pipeline from brain to reality, all through the same process, same simple set of tools etc. It is very very powerful for producing high quality ideas and outcomes in my experience.
This reminds me: some of the best "therapy" is to react to something in a draft email (with no recipient), then close it, walk away. Come back at some point and see if what you wrote makes any sense, needs to be communicated, or should be avoided altogether.
I find my initial writing almost never aligns with what needs to be done. But the process of writing it - in a reactive state or not - helps clarify that decision and slow it to the right (or a better) outcome.
I find my initial writing almost never aligns with what needs to be done. But the process of writing it - in a reactive state or not - helps clarify that decision and slow it to the right (or a better) outcome.
I often synthesize this as: to write, is to think.
It derives from David McCullough's quote, "Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard."
In order to arrange the right words in the right sequence to convey the right message, you're required to organize your thinking, and also consider how it might be consumed.
To bring it back home, I suppose the same could be said of writing code.
---
As an aside, McCullough wrote my favorite biography, John Adams.
It derives from David McCullough's quote, "Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard."
In order to arrange the right words in the right sequence to convey the right message, you're required to organize your thinking, and also consider how it might be consumed.
To bring it back home, I suppose the same could be said of writing code.
---
As an aside, McCullough wrote my favorite biography, John Adams.
Came back from the article to post his quote, and here it is. Moving knowledge outside yourself crystallizes that knowledge. It makes me wonder what happens when LLMs strip that away for most people.
Start from the assumption no one else is going to read your terrible scribblings or listen to your mutterings. If anyone were to accidentally bump into your creation, then the next step is not giving a fuck equally about praise and ridicule. Unless we get to Mars, all human creations will turn to glass when the Sun swallows the Earth. And perhaps the Hubble parameter will go wonky and all time, matter, and energy will be eventually be ripped back into nothingness more boring than heat death. With that positive note, use each second well, which doesn't necessarily mean seeking to be pointlessly busy.
Small nitpick. Everything on Mars will all be scorched and then heat deathed. Enjoy your evening.
Sorry to nitpick on your nitpick. I interpreted the original point as Mars being as the first stepping stone to further colonization of space. It's not that Mars is a particularly appealing goal in itself. But we're going nowhere until we make that first step.
Is this comment meant to be ironic?
.;''-. The lessons I was taught about the things of my thoughts
.' | `._ is that if I write until I quit then my thinking becomes quiet.
/` ; `'. I write.
,'\| `| | I write to think.
| -'_ \ `'.__,J I write quite a lot.
| `"-.___ ,' I write almost as much as I've thought.
'-, / I write until I quit.
} __.--'L I write to get the thing out of my head.
; _,- _.-"`\ ___ Which let's my thinking go on to my next thought when I step out of bed.
`7-;" ' _,,--._ ,-'`__ `.
|/ ,'- .7'.-"--.7 | _.-' Because there's only so much room up there.
; ,' .' .' -. \/ .' In that little cramped space inside of my hair.
\ | .' / | \_)- '/ _.-'``
_,.--../ .' \_) '`_ \'` Sometimes the thing I think about has taught me a lot about thought.
'`f-'``'.`\;;' ''` '-` | And sometimes the thought I have about the thing taught me nothing at all.
\`.__. ;;;, ) /
/ /<_;;;;' `-._ _,-' But I am grateful for the lesson it bought.
| '- /;;;;;, `t'` \ I don't think I could think without writing my thoughts down.
`'-'`_.|,';;;, '._/| Which gives me a new thought:
_.-' \ |;;;;; `-._/ Do I think to write?
/ `;\ |;;;, `" Or do I write to think?
.' `'`\;;, /
' ;;;'|
.--. ;.:`\ _.--,
| `'./;' _ '_.' |
\_ ` `) /
I see it as a "levels of depth" kind of exercise.
The first level is to be exposed to some kind of summary. The second is to attempt to read and investigate the details. The third is to use a hands-on mechanism of engagement, which doesn't necessarily mean "write software" for software development, it means priming yourself to be involved, which could mean writing notes, creating art or attempting to teach what you just learned. All of those things create facets of understanding that aren't accessible in a passive context, and the more modes of that you access, the more likely it is that you have a good grasp on the knowledge.
My approach to developing has grown more consciously iterative as I've caught on to this. I copy things back and forth between paper and the screen manually, and I just spent an hour today designing some personal versioning/project organization(a micro-project for an audience of 1 - start by applying Syncthing's sync and versioning, then add a script that tracks and clones subdirectories in a CSV - add comments, auto-logging and tags to taste in the CSV format, edit that file manually for all fine adjustments, and you are good to go in under 100 lines).
I realized that I didn't need "version control" so much as "iteration control" - sometimes I have a branch that has ambiguous relationship to an existing repository because it's rewriting stuff or is a different kind of artifact from code. Writing a blogpost is very much that kind of thing since it refers to work you did do, but it isn't a code repository.
The first level is to be exposed to some kind of summary. The second is to attempt to read and investigate the details. The third is to use a hands-on mechanism of engagement, which doesn't necessarily mean "write software" for software development, it means priming yourself to be involved, which could mean writing notes, creating art or attempting to teach what you just learned. All of those things create facets of understanding that aren't accessible in a passive context, and the more modes of that you access, the more likely it is that you have a good grasp on the knowledge.
My approach to developing has grown more consciously iterative as I've caught on to this. I copy things back and forth between paper and the screen manually, and I just spent an hour today designing some personal versioning/project organization(a micro-project for an audience of 1 - start by applying Syncthing's sync and versioning, then add a script that tracks and clones subdirectories in a CSV - add comments, auto-logging and tags to taste in the CSV format, edit that file manually for all fine adjustments, and you are good to go in under 100 lines).
I realized that I didn't need "version control" so much as "iteration control" - sometimes I have a branch that has ambiguous relationship to an existing repository because it's rewriting stuff or is a different kind of artifact from code. Writing a blogpost is very much that kind of thing since it refers to work you did do, but it isn't a code repository.
> “As he practiced his writing, Jijingi came to understand what Moseby had meant: writing was not just a way to record what someone said; it could help you decide what you would say before you said it. And words were not just the pieces of speaking; they were the pieces of thinking. When you wrote them down, you could grasp your thoughts like bricks in your hands and push them into different arrangements. Writing let you look at your thoughts in a way you couldn’t if you were just talking, and having seen them, you could improve them, make them stronger and more elaborate.”
― Ted Chiang, The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling
This quote really stuck with me when I read this story (which, as is usual for Chiang, is fantastic). It does a great job of putting into words how amazingly powerful writing can be.
The best writing I've done has been taking collections of disorganized notes and assembling them into "explainer" type articles, which I can go back and reference. This is, imho, one of my "superpowers" as an engineer - being able to create docs like this for what I'm working on can really improve my ability to get things done.
I do it for "personal" stuff too - whether I'm just capturing stream of consciousness thoughts on some topic or building some reference for myself. A few months ago, I did this one on quadratic equations, which ended up on my blog. I've already gone back and referenced it once or twice since: https://epiccoleman.com/posts/2023-12-08-aoc-2023-quadratic-...
The best thing was that, as I wrote this post, and worked through my own examples, I found a few different errors in my thinking which I had to correct before everything started to add up (literally!). Doing that work means that I not only have a reference which is personally tailored to help my brain remember things, but also a nifty blog post.
― Ted Chiang, The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling
This quote really stuck with me when I read this story (which, as is usual for Chiang, is fantastic). It does a great job of putting into words how amazingly powerful writing can be.
The best writing I've done has been taking collections of disorganized notes and assembling them into "explainer" type articles, which I can go back and reference. This is, imho, one of my "superpowers" as an engineer - being able to create docs like this for what I'm working on can really improve my ability to get things done.
I do it for "personal" stuff too - whether I'm just capturing stream of consciousness thoughts on some topic or building some reference for myself. A few months ago, I did this one on quadratic equations, which ended up on my blog. I've already gone back and referenced it once or twice since: https://epiccoleman.com/posts/2023-12-08-aoc-2023-quadratic-...
The best thing was that, as I wrote this post, and worked through my own examples, I found a few different errors in my thinking which I had to correct before everything started to add up (literally!). Doing that work means that I not only have a reference which is personally tailored to help my brain remember things, but also a nifty blog post.
I've been writing publicly for a few years and my experience maps pretty closely to this.
Being able to coherently express yourself is a critical skill. You can not write if you have not thought something through.
Being able to coherently express yourself is a critical skill. You can not write if you have not thought something through.
Most of the stuff on my blog is just about topics where I need to write it out for my own sake. I enjoy writing on it's own and always have.
Luckily some of it has gotten traction in here, but aside from that I don't really actively publish anything.
Luckily some of it has gotten traction in here, but aside from that I don't really actively publish anything.
I find it very therapeutic. It helps me work through things I couldn't do otherwise.
> You can't write if you haven't thought something through
Forums users everywhere would disagree.
Forums users everywhere would disagree.
Your snark aside, I don't think posting on forums is "writing." That's not what we're talking about here. For the most part, neither is commenting on Hackernews or Reddit or whatever.
I'm explicitly calling "writing" the process of creating a coherent set of thoughts, editing, and publishing them. It's something that isn't generally off-the-cuff and takes significant time and effort.
I'm explicitly calling "writing" the process of creating a coherent set of thoughts, editing, and publishing them. It's something that isn't generally off-the-cuff and takes significant time and effort.
Cal Newport talks about a middle level:
- Write for yourself
- Write for editing
- Write for the audience
He recommends writing for editing, for an editor to approve or reject, as a strategy to improve one’s writing.
Writing for yourself has value in exploring and clarifying one’s thinking. Writing for editing has value, for the approval of an expert, as opposed to the approval of an audience.
The distinction being, these all have a different kind of value, and the order matters. When you do the first two, the last one takes care of itself. But if you write for the audience first, it often feels generic, bland “content marketing”.
- Write for yourself
- Write for editing
- Write for the audience
He recommends writing for editing, for an editor to approve or reject, as a strategy to improve one’s writing.
Writing for yourself has value in exploring and clarifying one’s thinking. Writing for editing has value, for the approval of an expert, as opposed to the approval of an audience.
The distinction being, these all have a different kind of value, and the order matters. When you do the first two, the last one takes care of itself. But if you write for the audience first, it often feels generic, bland “content marketing”.
Writing for an audience may be bland if you think your audience is stupid. Newton wrote Principia Mathematica for an audience. If you write for history you write for an audience: all of mankind.
Writing for yourself is also an escape. If you're having trouble deciding the level at which you want to write, for which audience, you can just decide to explain things for yourself instead, so you understand better.
Some of your readers will have a background similar to yours, so they will understand. Others won't and they might tell you about it. Then, you can decide whether to incorporate their feedback and adjust your explanation.
I've started using this, because I have trouble deciding how much context to include and it has made it easier to write.
Some of your readers will have a background similar to yours, so they will understand. Others won't and they might tell you about it. Then, you can decide whether to incorporate their feedback and adjust your explanation.
I've started using this, because I have trouble deciding how much context to include and it has made it easier to write.
Writing is thinking. To differentiate between liberal arts and engineering is complete bogus.
And this is why I am sometimes wary of engineers who cannot express themselves coherently in writing.
I've had people tell me I'm being "unfair" for saying that someone who can't write well about their work probably isn't producing very good work (and by "well" I mean clear, concise, and relevant, not necessarily aesthetically pleasing or grammatically correct). Apparently it's unfair because "not everyone is gifted at writing." (Granted, I am an professional editor, so I could be biased.)
But writing is, fundamentally, thinking. Not being able to write coherently about a subject shows an inability think coherently about it. So why should I trust people like that?
I've had people tell me I'm being "unfair" for saying that someone who can't write well about their work probably isn't producing very good work (and by "well" I mean clear, concise, and relevant, not necessarily aesthetically pleasing or grammatically correct). Apparently it's unfair because "not everyone is gifted at writing." (Granted, I am an professional editor, so I could be biased.)
But writing is, fundamentally, thinking. Not being able to write coherently about a subject shows an inability think coherently about it. So why should I trust people like that?
> an professional editor
Also, people may write poorly for many reasons besides bad thinking. Being in a rush, ESL, they're sleepy.
Also, people may write poorly for many reasons besides bad thinking. Being in a rush, ESL, they're sleepy.
ha, fair enough!
You don't even need to share it at all, though having external feedback is nice. Writing is a gift to your future self. My only regret with my Zettelkasten is that I didn't start earlier. Being able to find what I thought related to some subject at any point in time is incredible. I refer to my notes daily.
This same benefit exists for the types of writing generally called creative:
>The Primary benefit (aside from any financial one) is that the creation exists afterwards, and is thus available as a form of mnemonic for the creator. They can revisit and re-experience that sensation of creation that would otherwise have been transitory.
https://medium.com/p/b0a2538416e3
>The Primary benefit (aside from any financial one) is that the creation exists afterwards, and is thus available as a form of mnemonic for the creator. They can revisit and re-experience that sensation of creation that would otherwise have been transitory.
https://medium.com/p/b0a2538416e3
> My recommendation is that you don’t look at blog writing as just something people do to work on their “personal brand”. It can definitely help with that, but first and foremost it is a tool that people can use to up their game and take their knowledge and critical thinking to the next level.
These both seem like extremely bleak, unimaginative ways to view writing.
These both seem like extremely bleak, unimaginative ways to view writing.
Taking the time to debug your model of reality is bleak and unimaginative?
Wouldn't the world be a better place if everyone did that?
Can you suggest a better use for writing? I love fiction for example, but people becoming less wrong (and by extension, more skillful in the world) seems like one of the most valuable ways for people to spend their time.
Wouldn't the world be a better place if everyone did that?
Can you suggest a better use for writing? I love fiction for example, but people becoming less wrong (and by extension, more skillful in the world) seems like one of the most valuable ways for people to spend their time.
As a fellow lover of fiction, I agree that there is nothing offensive or unimaginative about viewing writing as a way to deeply understand and consolidate your knowledge about technical material. I think writing of any kind is about processing information. In the case of fiction or poetry, this may be more about processing your emotions, or a profound life experience, or a cultural heritage, or a set of hypotheticals. Great literature, that stands the test of time better than more pulpy stuff, often tackles something the author and many others need to intellectually process, therefore leaving you with that feeling of revelation you may get after reading a good book.
The post is aimed at an audience of software developers. Tool users, in other words. It seems reasonable to me that tool users would view writing as a means to an end, rather than as an end in itself. It might help to realize that their tool use is itself imaginative. The tool users have co-opted a nominally romantic medium so that it may serve a concrete function. That's imaginative in its way: an imaginative use of tools.
It's "bleak" to want to improve critical thinking?
Totally agree! When I started my blog my motivation was to write about my projects so that I would actually finish them, but I've found that an added benefit is that I write "defensively" in a way that makes me fact check myself. I also add a lot more citations
There is interesting book about it: writing to learn
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Learn-William-Zinsser/dp/0062...
My blog has been private for twenty years. I have honed a lot of my thinking down to several bullet points. For example, how to manage my finances and save.
It is also a great way to record goals and their outcomes. I strikethrough completed life goals as a kind of version control.
It is also a great way to record goals and their outcomes. I strikethrough completed life goals as a kind of version control.
Kind of reminds me of the book by zinsser: writing to learn
Zinsser's Writing to Learn disappointed me. I agree with the premise of the title, and have had many of those "Eureka!" moments when writing out a problem, but the book doesn't really make the case that writing helps to learn nor does it give a guide on how to learn by writing. Rather, it is an encomium to the value of good writing about technical topics for the lay-folk.
Came here to drop a link to the Rick Rubin advice on the topic of building a thing for yourself out of love first but think the writeup intro from the 2min YouTube link is worth quoting in full ....
>Last month, Elon Musk tweeted that Rick Rubin’s philosophy of creating something truly for yourself is how Tesla creates products.
>Rick elaborates on this philosophy in the clip below:
>“My only goal is to make something that I like… I know what I like. If I don’t like it, I keep working, and eventually we get to a place where we like it.”
>And somewhat counterintuitively, he doesn’t consider the audience at all:
>“The audience comes last… I’m not making it for them. I’m making it for me. And it turns out that when you make something truly for yourself, you’re doing the best thing you possibly can for the audience.”
>Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt a similar point:
>"If you think about the greatest products, they've almost always been designed for the benefit of the people who are actually building them.”
>Uber started out as a private timeshare limousine service for Garrett Camp and his friends. Microsoft started when Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a Basic interpreter for the Altair so they didn’t have to write machine language to program it. Drew Houston built Dropbox to make his files live online after forgetting his USB stick. Larry Page and Sergey Brin built Google for Stanford—and particularly for themselves—with the first server in Larry’s dorm room.
>There’s of course a delicate balance here between building for yourself and talking to users—you don’t want to be “fake Steve Jobs”.
>Perhaps legendary coach Bill Campbell said it best in response to Steve Jobs’s approach of relying solely on the taste of Apple’s team members:
>“I don’t think a marketing person would have created the Macintosh, but [talking to users] would have made it better.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVe9-_ebyXk
>Last month, Elon Musk tweeted that Rick Rubin’s philosophy of creating something truly for yourself is how Tesla creates products.
>Rick elaborates on this philosophy in the clip below:
>“My only goal is to make something that I like… I know what I like. If I don’t like it, I keep working, and eventually we get to a place where we like it.”
>And somewhat counterintuitively, he doesn’t consider the audience at all:
>“The audience comes last… I’m not making it for them. I’m making it for me. And it turns out that when you make something truly for yourself, you’re doing the best thing you possibly can for the audience.”
>Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt a similar point:
>"If you think about the greatest products, they've almost always been designed for the benefit of the people who are actually building them.”
>Uber started out as a private timeshare limousine service for Garrett Camp and his friends. Microsoft started when Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a Basic interpreter for the Altair so they didn’t have to write machine language to program it. Drew Houston built Dropbox to make his files live online after forgetting his USB stick. Larry Page and Sergey Brin built Google for Stanford—and particularly for themselves—with the first server in Larry’s dorm room.
>There’s of course a delicate balance here between building for yourself and talking to users—you don’t want to be “fake Steve Jobs”.
>Perhaps legendary coach Bill Campbell said it best in response to Steve Jobs’s approach of relying solely on the taste of Apple’s team members:
>“I don’t think a marketing person would have created the Macintosh, but [talking to users] would have made it better.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVe9-_ebyXk
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Too long did not read. This advice is not helpful if you have schizophrenia.
There's a lot of advice that's good for general audiences that isn't good for schizophrenia...or other MH issues for that matter. That doesn't mean the advice should be disregarded or ignored. There may be ways that it could help those with schizophrenia despite your dismissal.
My comment was a joke and I am ok with the downvotes because I understand HN folks can sometimes have difficulty with jokes.
> because I understand HN folks can sometimes have difficulty with jokes.
if you had written something like "this advice must not be very helpful" rather than "this advice is not helpful" then it could have been more apparent that it was a joke. as it is, it looks like you're making unfounded assertions about mental illnesses that you don't have, which is incredibly disrespectful.
if you had written something like "this advice must not be very helpful" rather than "this advice is not helpful" then it could have been more apparent that it was a joke. as it is, it looks like you're making unfounded assertions about mental illnesses that you don't have, which is incredibly disrespectful.
How do you know?
ngl I'd love to read what's brewing inside schizophrenic's head
In my experience not everyone with schizophrenia / a schizoaffective disorder is able to communicate their experience very well, but some of them have published content about it and it can be quite a fascinating research subject.
I'm not aware of any articles myself, only videos, but if you're open to that I have a few recommendations that you could start with.
My favorite example would probably be this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU8VmJsX6-s
It may also be worth checking this one out, which is a review of various "schizophrenia simulations" (in other words, depictions): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60n7ZP3Cj-4
There are also videos that aren't necessarily credible sources, but that I find thought-provoking regardless. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHuFSnhKG9I
I don't have schizophrenia myself, but I have DID and a few other mental illnesses, so the topic of mental illness in general is particularly interesting to me. Learning about others' experiences can teach me things about myself, too.
I'm not aware of any articles myself, only videos, but if you're open to that I have a few recommendations that you could start with.
My favorite example would probably be this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU8VmJsX6-s
It may also be worth checking this one out, which is a review of various "schizophrenia simulations" (in other words, depictions): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60n7ZP3Cj-4
There are also videos that aren't necessarily credible sources, but that I find thought-provoking regardless. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHuFSnhKG9I
I don't have schizophrenia myself, but I have DID and a few other mental illnesses, so the topic of mental illness in general is particularly interesting to me. Learning about others' experiences can teach me things about myself, too.
lmao
I just started writing an email with our goals, what the obvious options were, how the options mapped onto the goals, what other contingencies might arise, etc. Through the course of writing the email it became pretty clear what the best option was, and what the fallback option would be in the likeliest contingencies.
As I was describing the situation to my kid the next day, I told her that sometimes when we write things down in emails or letters, it's just as much for distilling our own thoughts as it is about communicating with others.