I Decided to Write

Why does one write? To answer this question, I decided to examine how my writing has evolved throughout the years.

After learning how to write in the first grade, the first time I actually wrote something must have been to not forget the homework. We have limited memory after all. The Latin proverb “Verba volant, scripta manent” (Turkish: Söz uçar, yazı kalır) sums it up really well: Spoken words fly away, written words remain.

Then, I remember keeping a diary during primary school. It was a form of expressing myself. I tried keeping a diary again during my undergraduate years and during my Ph.D. years. Each time, I stopped after a period because it became a repetitive chore for me. I was not enjoying it anymore. I also remember writing short stories during primary school - yet another form of expressing myself. Sadly, I don’t know where those stories are.

When we moved to another city, I sent letters to communicate with my friends. Getting a stamp, putting the letter in the envelope, anticipating a reply were all pleasing experiences. It feels nostalgic now. Maybe I should start sending postcards to people.

Exam studies became longer as time passed on. It was because I copied my notes from one notebook to the other -sometimes multiple times- to learn the subject better. My notes sometimes helped others grasp the subject better too.

I wrote papers, reviewed papers, argued with reviewers during my Ph.D. Writing was -and still is- the best format to give & receive feedback, to disseminate ideas to a wide audience and influence them. While writing papers or debugging code, I realized I could organize my thoughts better if I write them down. This became more evident after I read Paul Graham’s essay on reading & writing. He argues that writing allows one to think well and discover things they would never discover at the first place. I agree. I discovered I never want to train for a triathlon while I was writing about my marathon training.

The theme of influencing people came up again when I started reading Ryan Peterman’s blog. What I learned from his posts is that, in Big Tech, the most important thing is how much impact you can make. You need to work on and solve important problems. However, you can only travel a certain distance on your own. To truly go far, you need to scale. You need to inspire and persuade people. Writing well seems to be indispensable to achieve this. The senior engineers I worked with during my internships share the same opinion.

I realize writing is going to be an important skill for my career. Like everything else, I know I can improve my writing skills only if I practice it. I want to reach a point where I write not only for the purposes I discussed above, but also because I simply enjoy it.

Last edited: Oct 13, 2024.