Free Your Mind
Tech companies want us to turn our creativity over to AI. Hell no, I won't go.
Writing is thinking.
This is a fact I’ve always known but never before had need to put words to, until I saw the phrase being bandied about on Bluesky recently: a simple truth that, upon consideration, becomes powerful.
Having spent a fair number of years writing opinion columns, reviews, and essays, I’ve always approached any piece with a strong idea of what I want to say. But, more often than you might expect, the process of writing changes my mind. Maybe I realize the argument I had in mind doesn’t quite hold up. Maybe a stronger point occurs.
Maybe I scrap the whole thing and begin again. Like I’ve already done with this, twice.
No one sits down with a couple thousand words in mind, all lined up into neat sentences, paragraphs, and idioms (and if someone does, they’re a once-in-a-generation savant). Writing is a creative process that requires thought, consideration, and revision.
The same goes for other fields: painting, sculpting, composing, singing, woodcarving, playing an instrument…
