I write to think

Writing is an act of discovering what you think and what you believe.

Dan Pink

Last year (on the 26th of March) I got the diagnosis ADD. Not unexpected, but the actual confirmation was both a burden and a relieve.

One thing that it made very clear to me is that my often cursed inability to actually retain the longwinded and multidirectional path of my thoughts, was not my fault. It wasn’t due to lack of effort on my part. It’s a disorder.

Knowing that, in itself, does not help. Knowing why this is the case, really helps.

I now often find myself writing to think, instead of thinking to write. I still have an idea to start with, a vague outline of my goal and what I want to say in my mind. But now I find that writing about things helps me think, way better than thinking ever helped me write.

In my Personal Knowledge Management tool Obsidian.md, I have many notes now that show my thoughts and the meandering paths I have taken to get there. That insight about the route I followed is often way more interesting than the thoughts that I formulate as an end result of the process.