When I was a student, I didn’t much care for writing. My spelling was terrible, handwriting: worse, typing: slow and tedious, editing: pulling teeth, and I hated conforming to whatever format the teacher was looking for. So I’d procrastinate and endure a stressful night of frantic work before each submission deadline. No wonder I didn’t associate writing with pleasurable feelings.
At this point in my life, I love writing. What changed? A big factor is the technology I use to write with. Instead of pencil and paper, I mostly write on a computer with a keyboard. Spell check underlines misspelled words and I can usually correct them a click of the mouse. A few years ago I got a mechanical keyboard, which I didn’t think would be a big deal, but subtly improves my writing experience. There’s never been a better time to be a writer.
The other answer is that I’ve always loved writing. After my parents read me bedtime stories, I composed my own stories as I fell asleep. I might have procrastinated typing school essays, but I composed them mentally as I rode my bike to and from school. Writing is simply fossilized thought and the hard part has nothing to do with putting words on paper (or a hard drive).
Still, it’s necessary to actually write something down. Most of what we write isn’t terribly exciting. The ancient Sumerians left us a lot of writing because they used clay tablets which could be preserved through fire, which is normally the enemy of writing. Most of what survives consists of accounting records and student exercises. While I’m sure ancient scribes were glad to avoid the back-breaking labor of the common man, there must have been days when it all got too boring for words. As I write, I have an invoice that I need to send out, but haven’t because the mere thought of it saps my energy.
14 years ago, I wrote a critique of Stack Overflow:
If you’ve taken a psychology class or two, you probably see the problem already: my intrinsic motivation was completely replaced by an extrinsic motivation. While there is debate among psychologists as to whether extrinsic rewards always drive out intrinsic motivation, few would agree that extrinsic rewards are better or more effective than intrinsic ones. We instinctively know that people perform better for love of the game than for a paycheck. When the extrinsic reward is a little number tacked to the end of your name, it seems even less likely to be effective.
When I stopped writing for a grade, I started writing to satisfy my own interests. Perl, for instance. I discovered Usenet and wrote many posts on comp.lang.perl.misc because I was learning the language. Answering other people’s questions required reading documentation, constructing minimal examples and expressing results in productive ways.[1] I developed a sort of utilitarian philosophy of writing: transmit truth to as many other people as possible.
Community management might not seem the optimum path to achieving that goal. Surely a writer would have more impact with a larger audience. Perhaps. Assuming they transmit true ideas rather than false ideas. Smaller scale truths are easier to verify. My Perl answers can be tested by anyone with a copy of perl. It’s far easier to mislead, even yourself, when the ideas scale to appeal to a larger audience.
Fundamentally communities stay connected via a common narrative. Whether you prefer to think of it in relativistic terms (“our truth”) or that different cultures have access to universal truth (“our understanding”), communities form around and propagate stories that can be tested given long enough time horizons. Since writing preserves stories, it creates a time capsule for future generations to evaluate.
The bulk of my writing, however, focuses on shorter timespans. My answers to technical questions might not survive the next release. Facts change and there’s a never-ending need to edit, update and retract. While this work can seem superficially unmotivating in the same way as school assignments, a focus on accuracy compels me. Who knows who might find my writing and be misled?
Ultimately I write to create truth, however small, in the world. The discipline of writing helps me discover reality and the artifacts of writing give other people a portal to what I’ve found. As long as there is something interesting to discover, I write.
The earliest post I could find failed on that last point. ↩︎