The Posts I’ve Thrown Away So Far
A few weeks ago, at the end of a work day, I decided to scroll through Twitter and catch up on my reading. I had saved this blog post from a few weeks ago:
Putting Ideas into Words (paulgraham.com)
I had no reason to save the blog post for so long. Normally, when a tab is open on my browser for over a week, I give up on it and just delete it (coincidentally, I did that tonight with a different tab). This one stuck with me.
Part of it was the fact it was an essay by Paul Graham, whom I think is an unbelievably clear thinker and great writer. A lot of writers present information, facts, and stories. Like a presentation at a conference or a lecture at university. Paul does not. Paul allows the reader to follow the journey of his thought processes. To me, it makes for an unbelievably pleasant read, and I even emulated it here.
So tonight I read his blog post, I thought about it, and agreed with him on all accounts.
As I’ve committed to publishing 13 essays in 26 weeks, one thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve thrown away a lot of half-written blog posts.
I had one about finding your purpose. I’ve found my purpose, and I didn’t find it by accident. I liked the premise of the blog post, and I thought the individual parts of the post were applicable, but I didn’t like the post as a whole. After 3 drafts, it was clear that I wasn’t ready to write that blog post yet.
I had a post about a year in review for 2021. I wrote about 4 paragraphs, put it down, and when I picked it back up, deleted everything.
I had a post about web3 and cryptocurrency, but then I decided to avoid the topic all together.
I had a blog post looking to answer the question “As an entrepreneur, when do you stop pursuing a certain idea or opportunity?” I got 12 paragraphs in, put it down, picked it up, and put a horizontal line in my Word document. Then, I rewrote the 12 paragraphs using different examples, compared it to my first version, and deleted them both.
I thought about Paul’s essay. I thought about the essays I’d written but never finished, and finished, but never published.
The truth is that, for those topics, I faced exactly the phenomenon he talks about.
“The first words you choose are usually wrong; you have to rewrite sentences over and over to get them exactly right. And your ideas won’t just be imprecise, but incomplete too. Half the ideas that end up in an essay will be ones you thought of while you were writing it.”
In the essays I threw away, two things happened, in order.
First, I did not understand my thoughts as well as I thought I did. This is not unusual. This happens with everything I write((In fact, it’s happening now)).
Second, I decided I either did not feel equipped enough or I did not care enough to deepen my understanding of those topics to the level needed.
The difference between that and this blog post, for example, is that while I certainly do not understand my thoughts well enough, I do feel equipped enough and do care enough to deepen my understanding of those topics to the level needed.
In the process of my writing my first draft, I’ve already rewritten a few dozen sentences. I’ll rewrite a lot more in the coming days.
I think this is why books are so powerful for business, and why AI as your Teammate has enabled us to scale like crazy.
In order to write and edit the book (and make it good), I had really deeply understand who I want to be a hero to, what they don’t know, what they want to know, and how I can be a hero to them.
Now, I know that the best way to do that is by writing it down.
I wrote that book to increase my readers’ knowledge about AI. The process of writing deepened my understanding.
Since I started my blog, I’ve noticed that I speak more precisely than I used to. I make sure to say things like “this example doesn’t work in all cases, but you’ll get the general point” and “please don’t generalize this example elsewhere, it’s only meant to convey a specific idea” a lot more.
I think slower than I used to. When I have an idea or thought that occupies brain space, I ask myself “How could I make this a blog post?”
I almost always think about the idea for several minutes, map out what it could look like, and then either lose interest or realize I don’t know enough and don’t want to know enough.
I speak more definitively about ideas where I’ve written a blog post, and, conversely, I speak much less definitively about ideas that I haven’t written about.
I say “I don’t know enough” a lot more.
“As I’ve committed to publishing 13 blog posts by April 18, 2022, which is my first 6 months of the blog. One thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve thrown away a lot of half-written blog posts.”
When I typed this, I went to see how many blog posts I published. Funnily enough, this post is the 13th. With this blog post, I will be accomplishing the goal I announced six months ago.
In the process of proofreading this essay, I almost threw it away. I asked myself “What am I trying to say that’s different than what Paul said in his essay?”
It took me a week to answer that question.
I started my blog to become a clearer thinker and deepen my understanding in the topics that interest me. In the process, I’ve thrown away more ideas than I’ve published.
Making room for deep, clear thinking, means getting rid of shallow, half-baked ideas. By writing them down, I discovered that, with every single idea, my thoughts and understanding were very shallow. As I edited, simplified, and clarified what I was intending to say, I discovered gaps in my thinking that I didn’t know existed.
As I sought to close those gaps in my thinking and clarify my writing, I noticed that I would ask myself “is it worth it?”
Sometimes it was. Those essays got published.
Most of the time, I either didn’t care enough about the idea to continue further, or I didn’t feel I was the right person to make sense of the idea.
In the process of becoming a clearer thinker about some topics, I needed to completely abandon my opinions and knowledge about other topics. I didn’t expect that.
That’s how my thoughts were different than Paul’s.
If you think you understand an idea, write it down in a way a stranger could understand it. If you’re not equipped to write the post or you don’t care enough to write the post don’t just delete the document from your computer. Delete the idea from your mind.
Your brain can only handle so many thoughts and ideas. It’s your responsibility to fill it with the ones that benefit you most. But how do you pick what to keep?
Start writing.