You–Yes, You–Should Be Writing

Summary: It’s the 5th day of counting the omer. I aim (and fail) to blog each day of the omer count leading up to Shavuot. Today I’m writing about…writing. Writing requires thinking. Formulating your thoughts and putting them to [virtual] paper sharpens your intellect.

In both computer programming and psychology, talking out a problem often leads to a solution. I suspect this applies to other areas of life too. And this is why writing is important: it forces you to think, formulate your thoughts clearly. And that leads to better and sharper thinking.

In computer programming, we have something called rubber duck debugging. Rubber duck debugging is when you encounter a bug in your code and despite repeated attempts to fix it, you’re stuck.

The solution? Talk about the problem to a rubber duck sitting your desk.

You start describing the problem to the duck, and as you formulate the problem, line by line, you begin to think of possible reasons for the error that you hadn’t thought of while heads-down debugging. Suddenly, a potential solution comes to mind.

Jordan Peterson, a rising academic, author and psychologist, was asked how he handles patients with difficult life problems.

His answer? When his patients come to him with a problem, the best thing to do is let them talk out the problem. His patients might not even know why the problem exists, let alone the solution. But when they speak to him about the problem, formulate it and explain it, often they begin to see a cause of the problem or even the beginning of a solution.

“Good session, Dr. Peterson!”

The same goes for writing. Writing requires thinking. And often when I sit to write, I have to organize my thoughts in order to write something coherent. (Hopefully that comes across in at least some of my posts!)

And as I organize my thoughts, I almost consistently see new insights and observations that I otherwise would’ve missed. Writing products better thinking.

And better thinking is good for disciples of Yeshua.

So, start writing. Get a blog. Tweets don’t count. If you’ve neglected an old blog, consider this a sign that you should start blogging again.