Why We’re Wrong Without Writing

 

“In today’s world we come to neglect the habit of writing because so many other media of communication have taken its place,” wrote Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. 

“If the only point to writing were to transmit information, then it would deserve to become obsolete. But the point of writing is to create information, not simply to pass it along. 

“In the past, educated persons used journals and personal correspondence to put their experiences into words, which allowed them to reflect on what happened during the day. The prodigiously detailed letters so many Victorians wrote are an example of how people created patterns of order out of the mainly random events impinging on their consciousness. 

“The kind of material we write in letters and diaries does not exist before it is written down. It is the slow, organically growing process of thought involved in writing that lets ideas emerge in the first place.”

“(W)riting gives the mind a disciplined means of expression. It allows one to record events and experiences so that they can be easily recalled, and relived in the future. It is a way to analyze and understand experiences, a self-communication that brings order to them.”