Reflecting on writing

I now have plenty of possible places to write to (this twinlog, a couple of blogs and a diary), but I don't seem to write a lot. I should do something to make writing easier and more fun. And something to overcome perfectionism. I don't consider these texts great by any means, but I certainly don't want to publish anything downright stupid.

The fear of seeming stupid is a flash from my perfectionist past. I have nothing against people with low intelligence, so being mistaken for one shouldn't matter. And my writing will probably make me seem like I am, anyway. (English is a second language to me, though. I do express myself better in Finnish.)

Life is much better when you accept things and yourself as is. Respect your innate sense of what is good and try to do the good and honorable things, and self-respect and contentness will follow. When I fail at what I try to do, I congratulate myself for trying. When I choose according to my principles even when it's difficult and causes me trouble, I applaud myself for not picking the easy and dishonorable way out. And when I inevitably choose against my own moral compass, I am gentle with myself: I do judge the choice itself and try to understand why I did it, but I also realize this is human.

I write because it is the right thing to do. Not because these texts have any real value for anyone else. The quality shouldn't matter, then? But obviously it does: what good is doing a good thing badly? Wanting to write something worthwhile during my lifetime is almost inevitable and I try to be prepared for that. This is practice.

People communicate a lot nonverbally. That kind of communication can pass feelings and judgments much more efficiently than verbal communication alone ever could. Another level of communication is speaking and listening, which is more suitable for abstract reasoning. Yet writing and reading seems to be much better at that. The merits of speaking are twofold. Firstly it can be done with almost no effort. Secondly it combines nonverbal communication to verbal allowing the sharing of our internal state (e.g. feelings combined to reasoning) better than any other method.

Of course writing with little effort is also possible. That's what I'm doing just now! An old quote goes "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." Never mind which of the attributions is correct, the point is spot on. Writing (and speaking) succinctly requires considerable preparation. I'm postulating that experience (ie. practice) helps.

So if this is mostly for writing practice, what should I optimize? Quality or quantity, measured in which way? Neither. I believe it's best to optimize motivation. I'm trying to be a generalist, not a novelist. Therefore I require neither quality nor quantity of writing from myself. I am very happy if someone happens to read my posts and even responds, but I do not need like counters or comments or a post a day/week/month/year to be satisfied. I am happy that I am writing.