Thinking with Writing: Abandoning the Maze
January 5, 2020
I believe writing is a thinking tool. I tried to make this point with a maze-solving analogy that contrasts two strategies:
- walking through a maze
- drawing paths on a map of the maze
My roommate had a valid critique: one strategy has a map and the other doesn’t. This is an unfair information advantage, so my analogy is flawed. I abandon it.
Here’s the root of what I was getting at. I believe all methods of externalization, such as
- making physical models
- writing
- drawing
- etc.
are thinking mediums. I feel like a quote from Michelangelo (the sculptor) best summarizes my view: “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
The act of writing is the discovery, exploration, and recording of thought. The final draft is hopefully precise and accurate to the idea you had in your head.
Whether you’ve written such that other people interpret your work in the way you intended is another discussion.