I’ve written before about why I write and why it’s important for personal and work reasons. I often use it to sense make and it inspires me. I’ve not been as purposeful of late and a lot of it has probably to do with AI. As you can imagine, AI makes it a lot easier to choose it to write for you, rather than do it yourself. It makes you lazy. This is my recommitment post, to my own writing.

I’ve started reading On Writing Well by William Zinsser, this fired me up. He said, “the act of writing generates some cluster of thoughts or memories that you didn’t anticipate. Don’t fight such a current if it feels right. Trust your material if it’s taking you into terrain you didn’t intend to enter but where the vibrations are good. Adjust your style accordingly and proceed to whatever destination you reach. Don’t become the prisoner of a preconceived plan. Writing is no respecter of blueprints.”

I share that not in support of the title of this post, I’ll get to that. What he wrote is more about the act of writing well and how to go with the flow if it is to work. It reminded me why I love writing for the pleasure of it. When it creates a state of flow and the effort becomes effortless, you enjoy it and the writing is better for it. You’re better for it too – there’s nothing more satisfying than punching out some powerful prose or getting an intended reaction from someone.

But there is also the connection to living for which writing is a wonderful analogy. And especially William’s point about what the act of writing instils in you.

There’s something about getting your words down on a page or screen that is life affirming. I like to believe that “I write, therefore I am”, to paraphrase. It’s not so much an affirmation of existence as it is simply a way of actualising lived experience. When you write what you know based on what you’ve done, it adds a certain concreteness to life.

In the same breath, Michael Pollan said, “don’t write if you know the answer”. Writing is one of the best ways to improve your critical thinking. This is needed for the right learning. Writing is subsequently an excellent way to solidify what you have learned. It reinforces learning because it forces your brain to slow down, organize thoughts, and process information deeply.

I’m making a lot of these points in the context of AI use and how, if we’re not careful, we’ll lose the ability to write and thereby lose all of the benefits it brings.

Reading is a closely related cousin and is in a similar predicament for other reasons. Reading levels have gone down drastically in recent years with social media doom scrolling replacing it.

The casualties in all of this is us. Whatever the causes, we cannot stop doing the things that make us human. The ability to read what others have written and reflect and learn from this and vice versa. And to think rationally and critically as a result, with a deep connection to others so that it grounds our actions. This is not something we should easily give up to algorithms and AI.