One of the great gifts to humanity was the gift to create.
“The greatest improvisation of the human mind is that which gives existence to the nonexistent.” — Napoleon
To will something into existence that didn’t exist before.
At 22, I have built a pretty cool company (a mere 1% of what it will be), but any success I have (not much) I attribute to writing.
Why?
1. The ability to storytell is a superpower.
When you can tell a good story, you can get virtually anyone to buy into your mission.
Humans are deeply biological, and our tendencies are rooted in millions of years of ancestry. We WANT to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and we can immediately discern the attention, care, and intimacy someone has put into their mission.
We communicated with words long before language, so it has an allure that is almost irresistible. When a mission is articulated carefully, and the benefits illustrated with intention, you can convince anyone of anything.
2. The mental acuity that comes with it.
In today’s day and age, our minds are poisoned with consumption. It’s the easy way out of critical thinking, which is increasingly hard.
We outsource our opinions to phones and are entirely molded by the culture we consume rather than the thoughts we create, which is a sad reality considering that many of the greatest inventions, catalysts, or social movements have come from an individual using immense first-principles reasoning to envision a reality and work backwards from it. Not following a path.
In my experience, writing allows the average person to capture the blueprint of free thinking. Like an artist with a canvas, you begin to create. New pathways are created, new models get formed, and instead of defaulting to a societal norm, you create your own that is forged by genuine interpretations, habits, and beliefs.