Why I Want To Write A Book. Someday.
There are people on this planet who run marathons.
Voluntarily! No bear or serial killer in sight.
Although I have almost no theory of mind for humans like that, I often hear versions of the same reason why they endure, even seek out such lengthy torment: To prove to themselves that they can. Apparently, around the 30km mark, finishing a marathon becomes mostly a matter of mind-over-body determination; an inner tug-of-war between the increasingly weakening body and the mind of the runner, willing its vehicle to endure.
I have no interest in running a physical marathon. But I am very much interested in someday finishing an intellectual one: A non-fiction book.
A book represents the best effort of making an argument — any argument — anybody can muster. Writing a book (without extensive help of AI) takes at least a few months of intense, focused labour over the exact contents, sequencing and wording of every point the author wants to make.
There is pretty much no topic that cannot be explored, in elaborate detail and with the appropriate care, over the course of a few hundred pages of text.
But what's even more extraordinary about that particular way of delivering one's argument — in contrast to a video, a blog, a song, a speech, a poem or every other art form I can think of — is that producing a book takes a lot of writing — which means a lot of thinking.
"If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it. And someone who never writes has no fully formed ideas about anything nontrivial. [...] Ideas can feel complete. It's only when you try to put them into words that you discover they're not. So if you never subject your ideas to that test, you'll not only never have fully formed ideas, but also never realize it."
— Paul Graham in "Putting Ideas Into Words"
There are a few topics that I have been especially interested in for a few years now: - be(com)ing an adult
- parenting
- identity formation and integrity
- liberal and scientific humanism
- analog productivity and writing
I have explored every one of them in writing, and almost every time, my own understanding of those issues grew in the process. I can only imagine what investing a whole year of learning, reading, thinking and writing about a single topic will do for me — not only as someone who thinks about stuff, but also as a writer. And as I do pretty much all my pondering and wondering about anything in writing, becoming a better writer will, in turn, benefit all my future thinking.
And not only that: Just like those marathon runners who have to conquer their inner reluctance to continue running, who must convince their legs to keep moving, I know that many months of writing a book will inevitably lead to moments of despair, of questioning my ability to go on, of wanting to give up. And just like those marathon runners, I hope I'll have the stamina to win that tug-of-war and see it through.
So of course, I hope that the book(s) I want to write in the future will find an audience and be benefitial for at least a few readers. But even if they don't, the process of writing it/them will surely be benefitial for me.
