Commitment anxiety

I inevitably hate every thing I write. Thoughts that seem alright in my head become awkward and trite on the page. Yet I keep writing them. Probably because it helps me to think. Once a thought is out there, written down, I can look at it and see it for what it is.

Writing a thought down seems to be the best of way of checking if I understand it. It’s easier to overlook mistakes in logic, or fuzzy thinking while it’s bouncing around my skull. But on the page it’s bare – and fixed. I’ve produced it, I'm responsible for it.

Of course I can change your mind, and once I’ve written some I always do. As soon as I write something, I no longer seem to agree with it. I don’t like it. It doesn’t seem like something I’d say … it’s not what I intended to say.

And then I feel embarrassed, and wish I’d never written anything at all, and get the urge to delete everything I’ve ever written.

But how else would I learn?