A higher purpose #

This post has less than 1% chance of being read by a human. The chances of it being read by a machine are slightly (at best) higher than that. Writing on a personal blog tends to have that effect. For me, writing has two overall goals: we write to communicate, or we write to learn. Both these goals make Writing, at its core, an epistemic practice. It actively contributes to the constructing, understanding and dissemination of knowledge, and that, in itself, is justification enough to write.

A typical human gains unique experiences that give rise to thoughts and ideas that feed into even more experiences. Our mind has the ability to connect concepts and ideas in ways that are unique to us. Collectively, these form the knowledge base of that person and if this knowledge is not recorded, consolidated and presented in clear detail, it leads to the loss of that knowledge. Written record of a person’s knowledge, thoughts and ideas have the capacity to be stored forever.

This post by Shilpa in our native language Marathi is a great example. The post starts with a very simple premise of wishing to cook a simple, yet very flavourful dish. Everything is going well, when, the antagonist in the form of self-doubt rears its ugly head. But with the help of collective knowledge and experiences from her near and dear ones, and with patience and hard work, is able to finally make the recipe. This is then presented to us in a thoroughly enjoyable and human way. The knowledge and experience has been now crystallised into a written record.

System 2 thinking #

I want to write better because I try out and learn many things on my Homelab and also at work, and I need to be able to understand, memorise and internalise my learnings. Having my own take on things by writing it down, bringing continuous cycles of idea generation and revision, is how I would like to construct my own digital garden.

Writing helps to externalise, organise and manipulate our own ideas and navigate through them, as an exploratory process. This exploration is often messy, but also deliberate. System 2 thinking, as per Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, is a slow and conscious process. It requires mental effort to engage in complex, logical reasoning. Writing aids this process by forcing us to revise and repeat, until we arrive at the desired output.

Another form of writing to enjoy the most is as a conversation with the Self. It allows us to have an internal dialogue, forcing us to self-reflect and challenge our assumptions. Journaling can be used in a wide variety of ways to take a pause and write down our thoughts and emotions. It is by no means easy or fun, but hugely beneficial in the long run.

I think, therefore I write.

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