Writing is the Best Way to Think and Understand

Tags: creative writing - learning - epistemology

Thought

Writing, and reformulating, or some would say teaching, because it requires us to manipulate a concept and make it more digestible through our words, is one of the best ways to get feedback on whether or not we understand a concept. We do not need an audience to get this feedback, our ease in translating the knowledge should be enough.

When writing, there is a need for precision or exactitude which leads one to discover what they did not initially think. Eva Illouz says, "Le savoir consiste à ne pas découvrir ce qu'on pensait au départ" — Wisdom (Or knowledge?) lies in not discovering what you initially thought¹. In writing, one is confronted to thruths which the brain had concealed from us in the fog of our thoughts.

References

• Obsidian, The King of Learning Tools by Odysseas
• Don't Annotate Your Books, Build This Instead - A Guide To Syntopical Reading by Robin Waldun