Why I Don't Write More, and Why I Should

Among all the various ways you can slice people into categories, I would describe myself as a person who comes up with a lot of ideas. Not ideas in the sense of material inventions, but in the sense of intellectual embellishments -- the kind batted around so frequently in the echo chamber of the blogosphere. And I am in the ranks of the highly educated, and I am an academic in training, and I am intellectually narcissistic, and so I often think that my ideas are essay-worthy, or at least blog-worthy. I would say that such ideas -- what I would consider to be, as a minimal criterion, the seeds of an interesting discussion -- occur to me at least once every few days. In fact, there is a drawer in my desk that contains multiple sheaves of papers with essay ideas scribbled down hastily during a dinner party or late at night as I try to go to sleep. And I do, in fact, have a blog dedicated solely to the purpose of exercising this writing faculty. So why do so few of my ideas end up there? Why have I actually written up such a tiny fraction of them? Why have I posted a grand total of six blog entries in the almost full year that my blog has been live?

There are a number of reasons, a perceived lack of time of course being one. But I somehow find the time to fiddle away on Facebook and The Onion, so that's a pretty flimsy excuse. A far stronger reason is something more deeply psychological: one of the things that most consistently hampers my ability to express an idea in essay form is the persistent fear that the idea has already been expressed by someone else. This thought I've had seems exciting and fresh at first, but upon further reflection it seems that surely someone else out there has already thought it, written it up, and published it in some medium. My own attempt would therefore be redundant, banal, unoriginal -- and in the world of intellectual discourse few fates are more discouraging.

But this mentality is clearly very counterproductive, as it stymies the very act that the blog is supposed to cultivate: intellectual expression, engagement, and development. So in order to kick myself out of this rut and perhaps appeal to others who suffer from the same predicament, I am going to offer the following reasons for why this fear of redundancy is stupid:

(1) Even if someone else has thought of the same idea as me and published it online or in print, it's still a worthy endeavor from the point of view of my own intellectual journey. It still represents a stage in the ever-evolving path of my own grappling with theories and theorists and all the intellectual back and forth that makes being an engaged citizen of these times so exciting. And this seems especially important to point out in the context of blogging, as opposed to publication in the print media: blogs are all about self-expression and the development of one's personal, subjective discourse, so one should feel absolutely free to engage in ideas no matter how facile or picked over.

(2) Leading from this last statement, it is a truism that the blogosphere is already chock full of repeated statements and redundant ideas. Go and find 10 substantive blog entries on any topic of your choice -- the banking crisis, gay marriage, sustainable development -- and you will find multiple repetitions. Blogging is not a peer-reviewed activity, nor should it be. The multiple iterations of ideas is actually a strength of the form, because it is through these iterations that we fine-tune ideas and hone theories, cut out the fat and get straight to the heart of a topic. Blogging, at least of the substantive variety, is the crowd's (or, to use more up-to-date lingo, the cloud's) way of brainstorming. So why not add to the effort?

(3) Furthermore, not all people out there get their intellectual thrills from the same sources, particularly when we're talking about internet sources, so it's perfectly fine to have the same basic idea expressed multiple times in multiple forums. It increases the chance that the idea will actually be heard and chewed on. So be redundant -- you are actually helping the cause.

(4) In fact, it lends more credence to an idea when it is expressed many times over by multiple parties. Imagine how weak the argument for sustainable agriculture would be if every commentator who wanted to express his support of it decided that Michael Pollan had already made his points for him, so there was no reason to second them. No, ideas need multiple expressions in order to pile on the weight of respectability. Michael Pollan may be a hell of a writer, but if he was the only one making the case for sustainable food systems we'd be in trouble. Blogging is akin to intellectual voting, and God knows we need more voters, not less.

(5) To return to the self-centered perspective of point #1, it is important to see blogged ideas not as fully-formed, comprehensive essays but merely as seeds. You are sowing intellectual seeds, some of which will come to fruition and some of which won't; some of which will be picked up by others and many of which will not; some of which you may return to at a later date and cultivate into a proper essay and some of which you need not bother. This is about development and refinement, not instantaneous perfection.

(6) Finally, this fear of redundancy is just a manifestation of a much deeper fear, that of being judged. When you write up an idea and post it for the whole world to take in (ok, that is perhaps being a bit optimistic about my readership) you have instantaneously put your thoughts, your work, indeed yourself out there to be assessed. What if people don't like it? What if people find it shallow, silly, obvious, or just plain wrong? How can I deal with that shame? But here again we encounter a hurdle over which one simply has to leap. Do not tens of thousands of people face this challenge every day in the world of blogs and journals and books? Is this not in fact a very healthy predicament that promotes a thick skin and a detachment from the opinions of others? And do not other peoples' judgements actually help fuel the very creative process that is the ultimate goal here? Is this most ephemeral of phenomena -- what other people think of me -- really going to stop me from the act of writing that I have been dreaming for all the years that I've been shoving scribbled essay notes into a drawer?

So blog on you wuss, and feel no shame.