It’s a pretty regular question? Why am I drawn to write things here when I could be doing other things? Or better, ‘where do you find the time?’

I’ve always suggested that public thinking is how the world understands health professionals. More importantly writing is how I understand me. How can I afford not to shape my ideas?

Seth Godin summed it up nicely here in an American Express small business forum:

Blogging is free. It doesn’t matter if anyone reads it. What matters is the humility that comes from writing it. What matters is the metacognition of thinking about what you’re going to say. How do you explain yourself to the few employees or your cat or whoever’s going to look at it. How do you force yourself to describe in 3 paragraphs why you did something? How do you respond out loud? — Seth Godin

Cory Doctorow echoed a similar idea in his book, Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free:

I often find myself unable to think about anything in any depth without writing a blog post about it to check whether I understand it sufficiently to convey it to someone else. — Cory Doctorow

Sure I can write in a journal but the social feedback that comes with publication serves as a critical check. My ideas have been shaped through what you bring back to me.

This space is as much process as product. And I’m coming closer to the truth that if not a sole ever showed up here I would still write it.

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If you like this you might like Write Like No One is Watching, 7 Reasons Every Doctor Should Write, Why Content Creation is Important for Doctors. 

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