One year! This site has been up for more than one year! Which is insane and doesn't make sense at all. But that is a fact. This has raised the question for me. Why do I write publicly?

But first, a time skip. About a year ago I attended an Elixir meet-up in Mumbai and I met SVS. Had a catchup meeting with him later. As I was explaining one of my projects to him, it was going poorly. I shared half naked readme, probably fumbling around in the codebase. Then he asked me quite frankly, "Why don't you WRITE about this?" This was so embarrassing. Why hadn't I done this before? He continued - Buy a domain, and write on a weekly basis. You don't have to keep it purely technical, you can write about a movie you saw also. Write regularly and keep it semi professional.

That clicked. Sometimes you just need the push. I had been writing privately for years. Sharing it with friends once in a while. Or as a part of college clubs. But to make that internal world public, that scared me. But keeping it semi professional made sense. Something in between a linkedinese speaking robot and diaristic entries, I could manage.

But still, these are only the public ones. I started writing private articles during Covid. Just to cope with it all. Why do I feel this compulsion? Eric Arthur Blair AKA George Orwell asked himself the same question some 80 years ago. Part of the essay is public. Orwell was.. well he was into language, can you believe it? The essay talks about his own motivations for writing. He generalises it to - this why writers write. There is some political stuff in it also. He was writing it as bombs were dropping on London, so makes sense.

He was a strong believer in simple, effective language mainly. He was arguing that the use of dead and complicated words was weakening the English language. Phrases or words like - at the end of the day, deserving of serious consideration, exploit, petty bourgeois. They aim at hiding stuff. Some of the phrases start out as original. But through repeated use by everyone, they become dead. They lose their original meaning. Slop basically. He named slop 80 years ago.

Here is a good example. This is the end one of my favourite poems - At Verona by Oscar Wilde:

"Curse God and die: what better hope than this?
He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss                   
Of his gold city, and eternal day"—
Nay peace: behind my prison's blinded bars
I do possess what none can take away,
My love, and all the glory of the stars.

Let us ask our friend GPT to slop-ify this -

“The proposed termination of existence, accompanied by theological denunciation, appears to constitute the sole remaining prospect. He, absorbed in the perpetual magnificence of a celestial metropolis, has ceased to retain you within his recollection."

Nevertheless, tranquillity should be maintained: beyond the visual obstructions of my confinement, I remain in possession of certain intangible assets, namely affection and the universal splendour of astronomical phenomena.”

Amazing - thank you. The point being - Good prose is like a window pane. If it does not do that, it has failed. Arrange your words with clarity and effort. Keep it simple.

It's not easy to follow his general guidelines. You have to be very alert about how you are writing. Are you dressing things up by introducing foreign words? Is this a good metaphor, or just an overused phrase? Are you overcomplicating things? And he himself admits that he has failed at the rules quite often. But that goal should also ways be in your mind. Don't lose sight of it!

But the motivations for writing, those I find quite interesting. He has 4 of them. I personally think you can also group them into two main groups: Practical and Impractical. Again totally made up, but why not. So let us categorise his reasons!

Historical Impulse

Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

This is pretty obvious. Write what you come across at work, describe events in your life - maybe a conference, workshop or a piece of work. This is firmly practical. And these articles I have written have proven tremendously useful. Can send them to people to show my work! Can point to something concrete while applying for programs. Especially the technical ones. They act as reference points for me! I am able to look back on my own work, think of changes to make, talk to others about it.

Even the talk at IndiaFOSS - it was only possible because the article acted as a guiding point. In fact if I followed the article line of thought even more, the talk would have been better. The process of writing such things cements concepts in your mind. And every-time you skim through the article, you are re-living that process. So speaking about things becomes easier. 11/10 would recommend.

Political purpose

Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.

This one I think is just the above one in different clothes in my opinion. Facts can be relayed, but there is always a point of view that relays them. So I will mostly ignore this. Orwell himself says this the weakest impulse in him. Putting this in the practical box. Next!

Aesthetic enthusiasm

Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement.

Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.

Would put this in the "impractical" category. Why do we like beautiful things? Something something usefulness vs beauty. But it doesn't matter. There is a misconception that non-fiction, if it's "true" it is boring. WRONG ANSWER. Our lives are stories in our heads. And if you don't tell that story well, even about real events that occurred, the point will be missed. Maybe one of my favourite Orwell lines comes for this point -

So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information.

No use denying it. And finally

Pure Egoism

Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood.

Aha! Now we are getting to it. Perhaps the only actual answer. I will let Orwell continue -

I had the lonely child’s habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued.

Right on. This is also firmly in the impractical box. What is even the point of pretending? You write to look special, to spite old enemies (coming soon), to lie here and there, to flatter yourself and others like you, to be mean to mostly men and some women while you are at, and to hide from the world only to find this is perhaps the best way to connect with it. Well, at least I do sometimes.

And why not? Why not write for these "bad" reasons as well? Chekhov said - "There is nothing good in this world that does not have some filth in its origin." We cannot remove these parts of ourselves. But that still explains only a part of the reason. I don't think all four of these still combine to explain why we write.

At the end of Anti-fragile or Black Swan, Taleb says this I think - We read and write for the same reasons dogs like sleeping on a particular tile. These activities will not go away. Why do I write? Ultimately I want to convey some experiences. And hope they resonate with someone. Why do we feel this need? God knows. But for now, am happy to sleep on my tile.

Post Notes

1.Orwell was born in Bengal and was in the Indian Imperial Service for five years. Someday there will be another article on Orwell and India. Another thing I can do! Make public promises.

2.This has been added later. There are so many people who have inspired me to write online. I should atleast mention them.

3.Shiela O'Malley, who writes beautifully about movies and art. She has actually allowed me to look at artists very differently. The INTENSE FEELING IN ALL CAPS technique I have just copied from her.

4.Tim Kreider was a cartoonist before he started writing and teaching. There are so many good essays he has, but this one, about practical visual effects becoming 'obsolete' is really great.

5.Joel Spolsky, perhaps the best software writers from the blogger times. Sadly he stopped writing on his site after late 2022. Hmm, wonder why?

6.Gregor Hohpe now this one I am definitely biased. He writes a lot about systems and tradeoffs. That is what I like. Think in lines, not boxes.

7.Paul Graham's writing style is something else. I find it both frustrating and inspiring.