Writing is an invaluable but difficult skill to master. Ironically, it should feel effortless—it’s merely thinking on paper, and we believe without much conscious effort. Yet it rarely is. The challenge in writing lies in truly understanding the idea one wishes to communicate. Understanding can be elusive depending on the nature of the concept, but it is a necessary condition for communicating it well.

Ideas are interconnected, rarely exist in isolation, and vary from simple to convoluted. The more complex an idea, the more apparent the need to write becomes. Because the brain isn’t designed to hold many things at once, writing provides a means to relieve some of that cognitive burden. By “thinking on paper,” we lay the abstract thoughts in our minds and their intricacies bare. This revealing exercise exposes the workings of our mind, or lack thereof, and the flaws in our reasoning.

Like a mirror reveals our physical blemishes, writing reveals our poor thinking. It gives poor or bad ideas no hiding place and exposes their parasitic nature. Bad ideas breed bad ideas, and wrong thinking leads to more of the same. However, unlike physical defects, which have a limit to their correction, poor or bad thinking isn’t bound by the same constraints. It is completely fixable if one is willing to invest time and effort to improve their writing. The benefits are multifold: clarity of thought, confidence in speech, better decisions, and most importantly, cultivating an independent mind.