Why blog?

Diving into things you like, or things you want to understand better, so that you can potentially work with them, is fun. Putting a piece of writing together gives you a sense of accomplishment, as you shift the (im)balance between producing and consuming towards a healthier direction. It’s also practical–it shows people you can think, and that you put effort into doing things right (almost no one gets over the activation energy barrier of setting up a blog, or even outlining one post).

But these are all reasons that your third grade teacher would give you. Boring, naive, and characteristic of someone who’s well-meaning but is not a practitioner themself. Like a fat doctor telling you to exercise.

The real reason you should blog, or rather, write, is that it clears up misunderstandings you didn’t even know you had.

Illustrate with this analogy: it’s like rolling out your tissues before you work out (MobilityWod first brought this to the attention of the public). You apply localized pressure to your muscles (by ‘foam rolling’ or using lacrosse balls usually) to get rid of ‘knots’ or ‘adhesions’, usually in preparation for a workout where those muscles will be used. You use broad strokes to cover the entire muscle, since you don’t know exactly where problems might lie.

Doing this gives you more mobility (ie, flexibility + strength) when you need to use those muscles. It also dramatically lessens your chance of injury when you’re using those muscles in a high stress situation like a one rep max or sparring. The corresponding situation for your mind is when you need to figure something difficult out–maybe solve a problem for an interview, put out a fire at work, or solve a problem at the frontier of knowledge. When you’re under pressure, the gaps in your knowledge will become very clear, like fractures in a brick under stress. You need a completely solid foundation, especially if you want to solve really hard problems. Under stress or not, if you don’t fully understand the fundamentals, you’ll never discover new things, because on some level you’ve merely memorized things. Discovering new things needs first principles thinking, which is the opposite of memorization.

Being disciplined about rolling out on a regular basis is also what gives you longevity as a physically active person. Otherwise, you eventually get injured, then become inactive, sloppy, and lazy, and also prone to more injuries. This is a vicious cycle that ensures most people eventually become out of shape. Similarly: maintaining or accelerating the pace at which you’re learning, synthesizing ideas, and taking advantage of the compounding interest of knowledge is what ensures that you stay relevant, at the edge.

Rolling out your tissues also keeps your posture from devolving. When tissues get short, from lack of use/age (really the same thing), you slowly start to look goofy. This usually takes the form of hunched shoulders, excessive kyphosis/lordosis, duck feet, etc. The important point is that not only do you not look human any more, but you’re less prepared to use your body now in taxing situations. And analogously, if you stop learning, stop processing new things quickly like you do when you’re young, your mental muscles atrophy, opinions ossify, and even your attitude itself towards learning new things decays (eg, Why bother doing it at all? My life is fine, using the knowledge I have right now).

In short, it’s about being ready to perform in stressful situations that could arise at any time. It’s about being ready. It’s about being antifragile.