Of the importance of writing

Writing. It used to be like a second nature to me. Hours spent putting my thoughts down on paper. The professional and the private ones. Long letters to my loved ones, never sent, but just here to explore the feelings and emotions that are inside of me. Like therapy. Some love letters, these ones shared, carefully crafted with words selected and changed until they would feel right and would properly represent what I wanted to express. Writing as a way of passing the time on those long-haul flights to the other side of the ocean, sometimes being moved to tears because of what was coming to the surface (and the lower level of oxygen on the plane). Writing in English as a way of sharpening my pen in a language that isn’t mine.

So where has it gone? What happened? Why did the long, enjoyable, clarifying writing sessions go?

Shall I blame AI for that? As with all of us, no, most of us, AI has taken up more space indeed. Instead of writing down emotions in long texts that I would read again later, I’m now prompt (pun) to turn to Gemini and say: “Here’s the story, help me unpack.” Is it good? Is it bad? Probably a bit of both, more like a different way of processing. Yet what makes me think it might not be the same is that AI makes it fast, when it’s probably a process that would benefit from slowing down.

There’s also this idea that AI might challenge you on the surface, but it will also validate you in ways that feel like external validation and stop you from going deeper, from questioning yourself enough, from reflecting and, ultimately, from accepting your feelings for what they are without a need to be validated.

This lack of exercising my writing skills has also led to shrinking the said skills much faster than I would have thought. It has disconnected me from my writing style too. I have tried, and I’m still trying, to make AI sound like me, but for some reason, it is not me elevating the AI to my style, but rather us meeting each other in the middle with something that’s good enough, but nothing more than that. And “good enough” when it comes to writing is never something I thought I’d identify myself with. It’s almost as if I had outsourced part of my identity and accepted that it would be mediocre, less sharp, and less beautiful.

It became very real and very concrete, and somehow hurtful this week as I was trying to work on my “About” page. Writing the copy for such a page should be one of my favorite playing fields, but it turned into a nightmare. My “About” page should be about me deciding how to present myself to the world, using my full creative license to design and write something that feels “truly me.” But because I wanted it to be perfect, impactful, easy to understand from the first line (you can picture the prompt I used already), it ended up being the average of all averages of how a freelancer or consultant presents themselves to the world.

And it made me doubt some of my core skills in ways that shook me. I know it sounds exaggerated, but it’s true. I turned against myself, telling myself that I was an idiot who couldn’t, even with 20 years of marketing behind him and some recognized storytelling and writing skills, write anything decent. That’s how spirally the bad spiral was.

It actually took quite a lot to get me out of that mindset. It took me stepping away from my computer, doing some yoga, meeting friends, some good sleep and 48h to somehow get to a place of “wait a minute, trust your skills, go a little bit more analog in your approach to building this, trust yourself.”

I’m not writing this for anyone to feel sorry for me, I’m writing this to remind myself of the importance of writing in my life, and how intentionality in the way we use technology is more important than ever. I don’t think AI is the problem, it’s created many interesting and beautiful opportunities (and a few ugly ones, too), it’s my usage of AI and it’s me using it to replace something that is essential to the way my mind is able to process information, and something that is such an important part of me. I could have used reading instead, I’ve also replaced books with social media, and chats with AI, and my phone being constantly in my hands, and it’s the same exact thing: the tools are not to blame, the way I use (or abuse) them is.

I’m in charge of every aspect of my life, I take radical accountability, so it’s up to me to place everything where it’s most powerful. Including writing.

I’ll remember the lesson.