Why Did I Stop Writing?

Why have I been writing?

I think I’ve been writing to get some external benefit out of the experience.

I thought that if I wrote good enough posts, I’d be respected, offered a job, or make some money (like when I post on Medium). All external things that aren’t really in my control and are perhaps unlikely outcomes for even a really good blog post.

That’s why negative feedback felt bad to me, even if on the surface I managed to receive it gracefully.

The negative feedback was “getting in the way” of the outcome I wanted: prestige, respect, a job offer, money.

Why should I write?

All of this naturally leads to the question, why should I write?

I could just privately reflect on my problems and interests, which is pretty much what I’ve been doing since I stopped writing.

But, even though it was sometimes painful, I did learn a lot from the responses. I don’t want to give that up. I just want to find a way to make it less painful, even enjoyable (hopefully).

So, why will I write?

I don’t want to convince others that I’m a perfect, flawless expert in some field (I couldn’t if I tried).

I don’t even want to limit myself to topics that I know a lot about. I’ll learn more when I write about (and research) topics where I don’t know much.

I don’t want to limit myself to thinking only about completely original content. Most of my ideas are unoriginal anyway. Like this post, they’re a riff off of someone else’s idea.

I want to write to reflect on an idea or problem I’m interested in. Then, I want to share my thoughts and learn from the feedback.

As Dan Luu said, I want to “view the upsides of being willing to look stupid as much larger than the downsides”. So, I’m going to post my stupid, unoriginal, hypocritical thoughts, and then I’m going to learn from them.

Hi, I’m Justin Fuller. Thanks for reading my post. Before you go, I need to let you know that everything I’ve written here is my own opinion and is not intended to represent my employer. All code samples are my own.

I’d also love to hear from you, please feel free to follow me on Github. Thanks again for reading!