There’s always something on my mind. A question about life, an idea or a decision that is due. Lots of thoughts come with it. They are blurry, and they often confuse me.
Writing things down, like I do right now, helps me seeing what’s beyond the clouds in my head. It forces me to articulate my thoughts for someone to follow. I wasn’t aware of this but to me it actually matters who that someone is, that I am explaining things to when writing. From school, university and business my brain is trained to write for other people. Ideally I come across smart and have great convincing arguments. That’s when writing gets tough for me. Even in this moment I can observe myself how I am imagining someone reading this text and wondering whether they may like it or not.
It’s a trap!
Luckily I found a better way to write. Now I write for myself. With good arguments I want to convince myself, not others. What I get is clarity. And what I loose is the fear of being judged by the reader. I mean, I did not write this to change anyone’s opinion. They are free to love it or hate it.
Why I published this text then, someone reading this might ask. Good question! Maybe I tricked myself into this “writing for myself” thing, only to impress others in the end. While I can never be 100% sure about my motives, I know that writing will only benefit me once I’m able to stop fooling myself by seeking external validation.
The reason I don’t keep these diary entries for myself is that I like the idea someone like-minded could possibly find it and relate to it. It’d be beautiful if that person could share their own perspective with me, so we can learn from each other.
Dear Michael, It’s been a long time since you wrote this, so your thoughts on the topic might have changed, but I can relate to what you wrote here. I feel that writing for oneself is more enriching and exciting than writing with others in mind, because it lets us explore something that’s on our mind or in our heart, whereas writing for others feels more like regurgitating something that we already know, which to me is boring. There is an overflow of information all over the place already, so the world doesn’t need more of the same. What it needs is for people to share what really moves them, so that we can start connecting on a deeper level through our common human experience. That is what creates bonds and what allows us all to understand ourselves better.
On Ken, we're trying to figure out how the world works — through written conversations with depth and substance.
