The astute reader may have noticed that I’m substantially behind on my Halfhaven commitment. It’s not because I don’t have time to write. Rather, it’s because often, when I contemplate writing, my attention slides away and I do something else instead. I like having written, but I find the actual process of writing aversive. There’s a technique I learned from meditation that goes “if you feel resistance to practice, can you love the resistance?”. I’m going to borrow that technique here, and write a post exploring why I don’t want to write.
When I started Halfhaven, I noted that one of the reasons to write is that it clarifies my thinking. However, I think this is also a source of my aversion. I tend to resist legibility in general, out of a sense that being too clearly understood will compress the soft animal of my body, restricting my ability to spontaneously flow through the world. Writing similarly compresses my thoughts, turning formless intuition into a defined sequence of words. This part of my aversion to writing is a microcosm of a consistent tension in my life, between the desire for the connection that comes from being understood and the desire for the freedom that comes from being enigmatic.
I never liked English class, back in school. Writing essays was the worst part of it. I’ve been very consistent in this preference throughout my life, I suppose. Why didn’t I like writing essays? Perhaps it’s because they were the school assignment with the least clarity of evaluation standards. I’m not being graded on my blog posts, and I’ve vocally pushed back against perfectionism. Nonetheless, I suspect some of my aversion to writing is an homage to the student I used to be, a lingering resentment of having to meet a nebulous external standard.
It may be that I don’t feel the purpose of writing. Writing requires dedicated focus at my computer, and that takes mustering. We can compare to another focused computer activity, playing Magic Arena. That intrinsically draws me to focus, as I enjoy the moment-to-moment. Writing is much less engaging for me; I write for the product, not for the process. Especially as I’m writing for my Halfhaven commitment rather than being driven by an idea burning to get out, the goal of writing can feel somewhat arbitrary. Maybe it will help to publish on Substack so I can more easily get feedback in the form of likes and comments; I’ve started mirroring some of my posts, but consistently doing so feels like one more chore in the writing process. Did you know Substack has no public API? In the year 2025?! Absurd. Anyway, one of the best things about writing has been hearing from people, both friends and new acquaintances, that they’ve read and enjoyed my writing. Perhaps I can keep that in mind as I write, motivating myself by imagining a future encounter with someone who read the post.
Two blog posts I read recently are somewhat relevant here, so I’ll mention them as further reading. I enjoy reading and do a lot of it, so I’m grateful for the abundance of writers in my world! I won’t necessarily praise their disciplined struggle, since as Ozy writes, they may not find writing hard, but I appreciate their outputs regardless! keltan writes about the importance of life experience for producing good writing. Writing about my experiences has sometimes worked for me, resulting in some of my longest and most widely-read posts. On the other hand, when I’m doing cool things, I generally don’t want to take the time to sit down and write. Writing about cool experiences does seem to change the blocker from emotional aversion to time constraints though, and one thing I’ve learned from my software engineering experience is that having a different problem is progress!
Thanks for reading; as always, if you enjoyed or otherwise got something out of this post, I’d love to hear about it!