There’s an idea I keep coming back to: the best way to learn something is to explain it.
Not to an audience. Not for clout. Just… explain it. Write it down. Force yourself through the parts where you wave your hands and say “and then it kind of works.” Those hand-wavy parts are exactly where understanding breaks down.
Why write at all?
Most of what I read online disappears from my mind within a week. Writing forces me to engage with ideas at a deeper level. When I write about something, I have to:
- Actually understand it (not just nod along)
- Structure the ideas logically
- Find the gaps in my understanding
- Fill those gaps
It doesn’t need to be perfect
The blogs I admire most aren’t polished publications. They’re working notes from people who are genuinely curious. Julia Evans writes about debugging and networking with infectious enthusiasm. Eli Bendersky writes about compilers and math with quiet depth.
Neither of them waits until they’re an expert. They write while learning.
That’s the whole point.