Writing Is Proof of Thought

How a Boring Blog Changed My Brain (and Why I’ll Never Stop Writing)

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”
— Anaïs Nin

I first started writing online in 2018. I had just finished high school and was bored, so I started a blog where I wrote about music, just random takes on whatever I was into at the time.

It was nothing fancy, just a plain WordPress site.

No SEO strategy. No monetization plan. Not even promotion. I might’ve shared it once or twice on Twitter. Got zero engagement.

Still, I loved it. It felt like my own little nook on the internet, where I could write whatever I wanted.

I loved the tiny bits of research I’d do to make sure my “facts” were correct, mostly just Wikipedia (reminds me of that one Henry Cavill clip).

I ran that blog for the better part of a year before heading off to university, where I promptly abandoned it to chase the adulterous and comically pathetic social life everyone my age seemed obsessed with.

But something had shifted in me, or maybe it had been awakened during that year of writing for my nonexistent readers.

And it only came to light in the last year.

The Void

In the past decade, the internet has been taken over by video content, and more recently, short-form video.

Your average user now prefers to consume information through 30-second clips.

This shift has created an entirely new economy: the creator economy. People spend hours a day glued to their screens, consuming something.

And the demand is high.

So now, everyone’s “creating content.”

Of course, with the general population’s taste in the gutter, anything goes.

Video content thrives because it has such a low barrier to entry.

Anyone with a phone and a camera can start vlogging the most mundane details of their life, rant about celebrity gossip, or recap last night’s football game, and people will watch.

But writing? Writing is different

It doesn’t go viral in 30 seconds. It doesn’t reward bland.

It’s a slow burn. It takes time.

And for all intents and purposes, it’s the precursor to all other forms of media.

Which is exactly why it’s the best-kept secret in the modern creator economy.

While everyone’s fighting for attention with short-form videos, there’s a quiet corner of the internet where clarity still wins.

CEOs, operators, and founders don’t scroll TikTok for wisdom.

They read. They follow thinkers. They save good writing.

If you can write well, even just half well, you can build a brand that compounds faster than you can imagine.

Of course, I didn’t know any of this back then.

I used to think writing was easy.

Everyone can read and write, right? So it would make sense that anyone could bang out a thought-provoking thread on the rise of GLP-1 medication, given enough time and research.

But no. That’s not how it works.

Writing is proof of thought.

Aurora and Tithonus (1763), Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée (French, 1724 - 1805) Aurora gave Tithonus eternal life, but not eternal youth. He aged forever, until he became a shell. A perfect metaphor for creators chasing reach without thought. Writing is how you stay ahead, not just visible.

Writing as a Weapon

Napoleon Hill once said that the faculty of thought isn’t available to everyone.

I remember reading that and dismissing it as elitist nonsense, but now, I agree with him.

Most people go through life without ever having an original thought or opinion.

Ask them a question and they’ll regurgitate whatever was downloaded into their minds the night before on the 9 PM news.

90% of the world are consumers.

5% are leaders.

The other 5% are thinkers.

The 90 follow the leaders, who copy their ideology from the thinkers.

The thinkers, meanwhile, have no interest in power or control. They just want to understand themselves.

When you walk around, you might notice these strange people. They do whatever they want, whenever they want.

They follow rules, but not yours. They follow the ones they set for themselves.

And the best way to identify them is through their writing.

Again: writing is proof of thought.

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

— Oscar Wilde

Read → Think → Write

Writing is a skill. It can be cultivated like any other. For some, it comes naturally. For others, it’s acquired. But in my opinion, the single best way to become a better writer is to first unlock your ability to think.

And the best way to do that? Read.

Reading sharpens understanding.

Understanding births thinking.

Thinking leads to questioning.

Questioning leads to discovery.

And discovery gives you something worth writing about.

It’s hard to write something truly new, something profound that the world hasn’t already seen or understood.

But it’s not about writing something new to the world. It’s about writing something new to you.

That one year of writing about music did that for me.

It cracked open a can of unquenchable curiosity. Now, I read more than I ever used to.

I started with self-help books, but now I find myself buying tiny poetry books I can finish in one sitting, much to the detriment of my wallet.

In the last year alone, I’ve filled four journals, something I couldn’t even manage the year before that.

Writing has unlocked a kind of mental clarity I’ve been searching for my whole life.

Maybe I’m being pretentious.

Maybe I’m on a high that will eventually crash.

Maybe I’ll wake up one day and cringe at all this.

But until then, I’ll keep writing.

Because writing is proof of thought.

And thought is what sets you free.

“Man is condemned to be free.”
— Jean-Paul Sartre