2022-12-28 Wed 12:57 PM ![[moses_relish_the_experience_of_being_confounded_while_writing_85612ea6-9a07-4e0f-87d0-272461a3d086.png]] I reguarly have a particular frustrating experience while writing. It's the feeling that I *don't know and should know*. It's the *expectation* that something should be easy for me to write, coupled with the *manifest experience* that it's hard for me to write. And this circumstance gives rise to frustration; I am [[Taking damage]]. The impulse is to quit, to change, to do something else. But, an insight. In at least some of these moments, *this is how writing should be*. This is where the learning that makes writing valuable occurs. A metaphor: in my mind I feel like I can picture quite accurately the front of my house. But when I try to put pen to paper and draw that house, I learn that there's a lot that either I don't know and only think I do, or at least don't know in a way that enables me to express it. I think it's similar with writing. I might *think* I understand a thing quite well but at the same time be under an illusion sustained by the fact that my attention never shines on the parts that I don't get. Or I might understand something on a pre-verbal, experiential level, but not have yet [[Kneading|folded]] it into the verbal conceptual mind. And this is what is so valuable about writing. [[Writing is thinking]]. As Andrew Bosworth [[Ref. Andrew Boz Bosworth 2018 - Writing Is Thinking|put it]], writing is "a linear process that forces a tangle of loose connections in your brain through a narrow aperture exposing them to much greater scrutiny." While writing you address both potential shortcomings in your understanding: 1. Where there are gaps in your knowledge, you will notice. If you want to fill a gap, you might need to go do some research. 2. Where you have knowledge that is pre-verbal — not yet articulated in conceptual space — you will notice. If you want to describe the thing satisfyingly with language, you will need to go through that transmutation process. It is by confronting your ignorance and working through it, again and again, that you get smarter. That's what writing does. And it happens exactly in these moments where you're confounded. A reframe: when you're trying to write something, and you think it should be easy, and you find that it's not easy, this is not a sign that something has gone wrong. This is a sign that you are about to learn. But [[Fire the metaphor|fire the frame]] that polished prose should now be flowing freely; the [[Find the easy next step|next easy step]] is more like thinking.