Keeping a consistent blog has been a struggle for me in the past. I’ve had multiple iterations that I’ve started and fizzled out in just a few posts. Between becoming interested in other things and honestly feeling like I didn’t have anything to say, writing for the public has always been an easy thing to put on the back burner.
Before embarking on this latest iteration, I decided to deeply reflect on why I want to keep a blog. When organizing my Slash Pages, it seemed fitting to record my reasons on a Why page in the spirit of Miriam Suzanne’s Why Proposal to stay motivated. Here is that record.
Writing is a Knowledge Crucible
A crucible is a container used in metallurgy to heat and melt metals at very high temperatures, often to purify or refine the material by removing impurities. It metaphorically represents a process of transformation where raw, unrefined material is subjected to intense heat to separate out the impurities and reveal the pure essence contained.
In the Marines, the Crucible is the final test exercise in bootcamp, where the last civilian impurities of recruits are burnt off in the heat of intense training.
In relation to writing, the concept of a crucible signifies how the act of putting thoughts into words on paper can serve as a refining process for ideas. Just as metals are purified in a crucible, writing helps to strip away assumptions, clarify fuzzy thoughts, and uncover the core truths within our understanding. Through this process, writing becomes a tool for intellectual refinement, transforming vague notions into clear and useful insights.
When thoughts exist only in our head, I’ve found there are two forces working against them being fully fleshed out: Cronyism and the Illusion of Explanatory Depth.
Challenging Crony Beliefs
Crony beliefs are ideas we hold partly because we want to believe them, often for social or political gain rather than based on solid evidence or logical reasoning. According to https://meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs/, these beliefs are typically maintained not because they are true, but because they serve our self-interest or help us maintain social standing. Writing down our thoughts and opinions plays a crucial role in surfacing these crony beliefs, as the act of putting ideas into words forces us to examine their foundations more critically. When we write, we create a tangible record of our beliefs, which allows us to analyze them more objectively, identify any biases or superficial justifications, and question whether they genuinely hold up against scrutiny. This process of articulation helps reveal crony beliefs that might be hidden behind confidence or defensiveness, ultimately enabling us to challenge whether they are rooted in truth or merely serve our social or psychological needs.
The Illusion of Explanatory Depth
The Illusion of Explanatory Depth (IOED) is a cognitive bias where people believe they understand complex concepts more thoroughly than they actually do. This concept is similar to the Dunning–Kruger effect. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_explanatory_depth , this illusion often leads individuals to overestimate their knowledge, feeling confident in explaining how things work, such as everyday devices or scientific processes, until they are challenged to provide detailed explanations.
Writing down thoughts and explanations can help challenge this illusion by making our understanding explicit and concrete. When we attempt to articulate how something works in detail, we often encounter gaps or inconsistencies in our knowledge that were previously unnoticed. This act of putting ideas into words reveals the true limits of our understanding, helping us see where our confidence is misplaced and encouraging a more honest assessment of what we really know. In this way, writing serves as a powerful tool to expose the false sense of mastery created by the IOED.
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People overestimate their knowledge and expertise. To avoid this, examine your knowledge honestly and draw a hard line between what you really do know and what you’re not sure about.
Dobelli, Rolf. The Art of Thinking Clearly. First edition, Harper, 2013.
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Any thought of a certain complexity requires writing. Coherent arguments require the language to be fixed, and only if something is written down is it fixed enough to be discussed independently from the author.
Ahrens, Sönke. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking. 2nd edition, Revised and Expanded edition, Sönke Ahrens, 2022.
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If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn’t written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it. And someone who never writes has no fully formed ideas about anything nontrivial.
Graham, Paul. Putting Ideas into Words. https://paulgraham.com/words.html?viewfullsite=1. Accessed 7 Aug. 2025.
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Sometimes, the act of writing reveals areas where the knowledge is lacking or inconsistent.
Osmani, Addy. Write about What You Learn. It Pushes You to Understand Topics Better. https://addyosmani.com/blog/write-learn/. Accessed 26 Aug. 2023.
Sharing Knowledge Generates Value
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Indeed I desire to transfer every one of them to you; part of my joy in learning is that it puts me in a position to teach; nothing, however outstanding and however helpful, will ever give me any pleasure if the knowledge is to be for my benefit alone. If wisdom were offered me on the one condition that I should keep it shut away and not divulge it to anyone, I should reject it.
Seneca, Letters From A Stoic
As I’ve mentioned in my Interests page, I’m no stranger to having been wrong. I try to approach interactions with others with the attitude of being the dumbest person in the room. This isn’t from a lack of self-esteem or self-efficacy, but simply because I want to treat everyone as if they have something to teach me.
When it comes to sharing knowledge on a blog, I truly believe that if I put my ideas out there in writing, any gaps I’m unaware of will have more opportunity to become apparent, because it creates opportunities for others to respond directly, helping me see things I might have missed or blind spots I couldn’t identify on my own.
Producing output feels, for me, almost a bit selfish because it provides a foundation for these kinds of conversations with others who are in the same space or interested in similar ideas. When I’m writing blog posts or essays on this platform, I’m writing for others to read it. This awareness naturally encourages me to scrutinize what I’m putting down a little more closely so I might anticipate objections or counterpoints others might raise.
As I mentioned in the previous section, I see writing as a crucible of knowledge. Writing with the purpose of sharing doubles down on that. It isn’t just about generating words or fluff, but about creating something that invites feedback and dialogue.
I’m a sucker for Eponymous Laws, and one that comes to mind is Cunningham’s Law which states:
the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.
I’ll never intentionally post the wrong information on this blog of course, but I do feel that if I post something unintentionally that might not be the full story, folks will not have a problem calling me out on it.
Even if what I post isn’t necessarily incorrect, another aspect I believe in is that outputting opinions through these essays and blog posts increases serendipity. As Tiago Forte points out in Building a Second Brain, sharing your thoughts can lead to unexpected connections.
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…sharing our ideas with others introduces a major element of serendipity. When you present an idea to another person, their reaction is inherently unpredictable.
Forte, Tiago. Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential. First Atria Books hardcover edition, Atria Books, 2022.
Other people might take my ideas and link them to concepts I hadn’t yet considered, bringing fresh perspectives and insights. Everyone approaches knowledge, writing, and language from different life perspectives, which could potentially serve to expand my understanding and open up new possibilities for growth.
Finally, sharing knowledge ties into a philosophy Scott Hanselman and Jon Udell both talk about which is described as the “finite keystrokes” approach. Instead of constantly rewriting or reinventing the wheel whenever someone asks me for information, it’s more efficient to point people to an existing, accessible blog post. Having a bank of (hopefully well organized) knowledge that I can share makes answering these requests quicker.
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If you email someone one on one, you’re reaching that one person. If you blog about it (or update a wiki, or whatever) you get the message out on the web itself and your keystrokes travel farther and reach more people. Assuming you want your message to reach as many people as possible, blog it. You only have so many hours in the day.
Hanselman, Scott. Do They Deserve the Gift of Your Keystrokes? https://www.hanselman.com/blog/do-they-deserve-the-gift-of-your-keystrokes. Accessed 23 May 2025.
Non-Reasons I’m Keeping a Blog
I’ll just reiterate a few things from my Colophon page:
This isn’t a money making venture
I don’t want this site to become a product and therefore subservient to the incentives that come with being one. Therefore:
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- There will never be any type of paid advertisements on this site
- At the very most, there might be affiliate links available to purchase things that I’m recommending
- Even in those cases it will be clearly marked and I’ll try to remember to provide a non-affiliate option.
- Any recommendations you see on this site are because I think they are good products, and never to put money in my pocket
- I’m never going to put anything on this site behind a paywall
- I have a way to send tips over on Coffee if you really want to show me support, but you won’t see me trying to drive traffic over there
This isn’t a clout making venture
I don’t have any desire to become internet famous from this site, so you won’t see any of the strategies that are often employed to build a fan base:
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- I’m not going to have clickbait titles
- If I do put analytics on the site, it will be something like Plausible to respect the privacy of the user
- I’m not going to follow a strict publishing schedule required to build a following
- I’ll never have a newsletter for you to sign up for
