On Writing

Writing is frightening. There is nothing more vulnerable than the act of spilling forth your heart and soul unto the page, allowing your deepest, darkest secrets to be spelled out in gritty permanence. Thousands of unseen eyes scour these secrets; while many of those eyes are supportive and open-minded, just as many are critical of everything you worked so hard to create, everything you believe in. Those harsh eyes always linger longer, not on the page but in the mind: one critic can leave wounds that cannot be healed with a thousand supporters. It is those lingering voices that make writing so brutal and scary and vulnerable and Necessary.

Easy, crowd-pleasing writing can be nice to read, but it doesn’t change anything. It is the people who are willing to stare into those critical eyes and say whatever they want to that change the game. The willingness to speak out has defined the legacies of the greatest ever to hold the pen, be it scientific writers like Galileo or philosophical writers like Socrates. It is that same willingness that we need today. We have so many problems that need solving and so few solutions to those problems. So why not pick up a pen and give the world yours? It’s scary, I know, but your opinion can be the one that changes the way we think about a problem, the one that helps us come that much closer to the answer.

Be candid, be passionate, be vulnerable– be the solution.