#484 – Why write, or how does writing serve you?

Many people today outsource their writing to AI––to their own peril.

In August of 2003, during a weeklong course, Portuguese novelist António Lobo Antunes confessed that he wrote to "capture the smiles of the old ladies in my village." The sentiment got me then: for five hours every day, he kept us on the verge of tears, his misaligned blue eyes wandering across the room as he searched for words in his non-native Spanish.

Today, I find a new truth in it.

The "smiles of the old ladies in your village" contain warmth, dedication, love, tolerance, grief, joy, fear, anger. Life. And every time you manage to capture some of that in your words, you learn a little bit about yourself. You understand a bit more what moves you: what draws you in and what pushes you away. Where you stand in your own life.

Because writing isn't about producing outputs. It's about processing life. Your life.

But it’s so easy now to tell a chatbot, hey, write a newsletter about why write. And because we’re biased toward efficiency and false urgency, many people cave in––as though what mattered was the output.

Writing is for you.

If other people love your writing and benefit from it, wonderful. If not, if readers unsubscribe in troves, you still get your reward every time you rack your brain trying to describe with precision that specific attitude you sensed in your boss that day in June when he said, "It's all green to me," in the too cold open office on W 36 Street.

Now, is it "easier" to live as yourself as a writer? Not necessarily, but that's another post.

What will you stop outsourcing so that you reap the benefits of your efforts?

Love,

Carolina