I’m convinced that writing out thoughts into coherent segments, eg blog posts or journal entries, then posting them somewhere greatly aids in the process of developing thoughts.

Put differently, when I get my thoughts out on paper and submit them somewhere, I force myself to do two things: 1) it forces me to define the thought clearly which makes me more aware of the extent of the thought, 2) it allows me to stop thinking the thought, gives me space and a breather from it, and then lets me reflect on the thought as an outsider. These two elements are super important in developing and revising one’s thoughts. Thoughts that seemed so big and important can seem small on paper. Thoughts that we keep coming back to can finally be left alone when written down.

I see a parallel with music. I write music, record it, then submit it. Then I listen to it. I have a breather from it. And I can evaluate it separately from the moment where I play it, and it’s always different from how it feels in the moment. Then over time the quality improves. I start writing stuff that hadn’t occurred to me to write, that only came to me after a series of thoughts that let me to that thought. As the thoughts progress, they develop, and it feels largely like a discovery process. Like going down a path through the woods, you only can see in front of you - you can’t see where the path ends.

Confusion in life can arise when one has thoughts that haven’t yet been figured out, thoughts that remain to be discovered, so it’s important to go down this path of discovery in order to dispel the confusion.