Writing That Matters

Handwritten notes from a conference attended by the author. 
The messy, human beginning of a published blog post.

I have been writing my blog since 2008 and with over 200 posts, my writing process is sacrosanct to me. Writing is not only one of my hobbies, it is also essentially something that contributes deeply to my sense of self. It is a core activity that helps me make sense of my experiences, my work, and my reflections. I value the process of writing as much as the output.

Even though my blog posts may appear finished, I have developed an internal capacity to make space for ambiguity where I am still making space for unresolved thoughts. There is also an evolution of sorts or a continuity of sense-making over the last two decades.

The process of writing has given me many opportunities to reflect on my biases, assumptions, contradictions and values. For me writing is not purely for information, it is also for critique, judgement, reflection and growth.

Writing is meaningful for me because I enjoy working through the ambiguity and unresolved thoughts. I am okay with sitting with the unfinished and very appreciative of the wrestle that gets me to the finish line.

I do wonder about how a lot of writing is being produced today, what kind of writing still requires a human, what kind of writing still matters. 

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"Writing that matters will be writing that can still function as evidence of human deliberation." - James O’Sullivan 

More: https://psyche.co/ideas/well-soon-find-out-what-is-truly-special-about-human-writing

"Writing isn’t just the production of sentences – it’s the training of endurance by way of sustained attention. It’s a way of learning what one thinks by attempting to say it. An LLM can reproduce the appearance of that activity, but it can’t replace it, because the value lies not only in the object produced but in the transformation that occurs during its making." - Micah Nathan, an MIT writing professor on his students using AI 

More: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/may/10/fiction-writing-professor-ai

"Cognitive ownership lives in the process of making the thing, in the wrestle that happens before the piece is finished. It is what you accumulate when you struggle with a sentence, choose the wrong word, change your mind, and end up somewhere you did not expect to be. It is the residue of having been there. You can produce a polished piece of work without it, and you can produce a flawed piece of work that is saturated with it, and the difference between the two is invisible until someone asks you a question and you have to answer from inside the thinking." - Yen Anderson on AI-assisted work and the ownership we are losing without noticing

More: https://yenanderson.substack.com/p/the-author-was-absent

"More generally, the impact of AI on learning, motivation, and meaning may differ depending on the stage of life or career. Individuals in later stages of life—who have already developed the skills to persevere through difficulty, learn from failure, and find meaning in their work—can benefit from using AI to save time, conserve resources, and enhance output. For them, AI functions as a supplement rather than a substitute. By contrast, individuals in earlier developmental stages risk bypassing the very experiences that build these foundational skills. Just as students are still asked to “show their work” even when calculators exist, younger learners need to struggle, reason, and revise through the full process before they can benefit from shortcuts." 

More: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-026-00402-1