Why Great Writing Is Selfish

Every Saturday night, for the past 11 months, I sat at my desk, put my hands on my keyboard, and wrote a deep-dive essay. Post after post. Week after week. Over 59 essays and counting.

And now I’ve added a second newsletter.

Why? Why do I put myself through all this work?

The selfish truth is I enjoy it.

Because to me, writing isn’t just an act of expression, it’s an act of discovery.

When I start a deep dive, I never truly know what I’ll be writing about until I start writing. I start with an inkling of an idea, and as I write it becomes clearer and clearer.

Kind of like scratching a lottery ticket with a penny. Or wiping a foggy mirror.

That act of discovering both what I know (and don’t know) about a topic is where learning takes place. In the initial phases of writing a deep-dive essay, I’m pulling inspiration from as many places as possible.

If I don’t have enough material, or “ammunition”, I’ll do additional research on the topic.

(It’s ironic because I hated, and I mean HATED, doing research in school).

Yet when I do research for my own essays—by following my curiosities—I feel like I could do it forever. I like to think of myself as an “Idea Hunter”.

Writing a weekly deep dive acts as a forcing function. It forces me to consume better content, and in turn, learn more.

Writing also crystallizes my understanding. Because to effectively share an idea, you first have to fully understand it.

Sometimes it can be enlightening to realize that you didn’t quite understand a concept as well as you thought.

But oftentimes, it’s painful.

Like checking your watch on a run and realizing you’ve only run 0.1 miles out of five.

When you get that feeling, don’t fret. It simply means you have more exploring to do. This happens because we’ve mistaken recognition for understanding.

A great example would be when your math teacher explains how to do a math problem. You might watch her solve it once and think, “Yeah, that makes sense.” But when you try to do it yourself, you struggle to solve the problem.

Nat Eliason compares writing with building a LEGO set. You might build the LEGO set once with instructions (consuming), but it’s not until you rebuild it on your own that you really understand it (writing). And once you can build the set on your own, you start to pull in pieces from other sets to construct entirely new creations.

That’s the beauty of writing. It compounds. And the top writers in the world are able to combine seemingly unrelated disciplines—like physics, persuasion, and philosophy—and synthesize them to create a masterpiece.

But the real secret sauce?

Blowing your own mind. There’s a common, almost cliche debate going around on the internet: “When writing, should you focus on education or entertainment?”

My answer? You should focus on enthusiasm. You see, writing, like any form of communication, is energy transfer. So if you want your writing to resonate with others, it first needs to resonate with you.

That’s why your writing should blow your own mind. Because people can tell when you're enthralled with something. So as you explore the depths of an idea, allow yourself to be entirely captivated by it.

If you haven’t found an idea that fascinates you, keep looking. Follow your curiosity until you find an idea you can’t not write about.

Because at the end of the day, writing isn’t for anyone else. It’s for you.

And the more you make it for you, the more it will help others.

So write. Write selfishly, share selflessly.

Jay “Write For Yourself” Yang

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