I write to think, reflect, ponder.
All in order to gain insights that will help me lead a better life. By extension, I assume there will be a fraction of Humanity that may benefit from them too – so I publish them online. This fraction may be less than one percent, but any amount over zero is enough for me.
I don’t spend much time editing my writings.
On the one hand I want to write freely, I enjoy it, it is not “work”. Free-flow writing every morning is my ideal format to keep enjoying it. I spent years accumulating countless writings that never got published. Editing killed my output. Now I prefer to err on the side of publishing things that should have be kept in draft than the other way around. No one can benefit from what I never shared.
On the other hand there is power in stream-of-consciousness writing that is lost in most polished essays. The best autobiographical documents, such as meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Essays on Idleness by Kokone, or Leonardo DaVinci’s notebooks, have an unparalleled freshness. And when I say freshness I mean aliveness. They are full of present moment awareness. You can almost feel their presence when reading their words, even though they wrote it centuries ago.
I am big fan of curating. I am constantly curating what I read, where I go, even who I spend my time with. But curating my words too much risks making me sounds like a holier than though preacher. Helas, I’m a “sinner” like all the rest – he who “misses the mark”.
I’m just trying day by day to refine my wisdom, my understanding of how to live a good life, and sharing it.
I hope you gain something from it, just as I have gained from others like you sharing their insights.
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