There’s a particular kind of writing I haven’t done in a while. The kind where the thoughts are so tangled they rattle around in your head with no way out. The only way to make sense of them is to wrestle them onto the page. It’s not clean.

It’s not elegant.

You start half-wrong and end somewhere surprising. But that’s the point.

Writing like this isn’t for distribution.

It doesn’t need to be seen.

There’s no ROI, no audience to serve, no CTA at the end.

The reward is the clarity. That moment when your brain, after circling itself in loops, finally lands on a sentence that feels right.

You didn’t start with it, but you earned it.

Clear writing is the byproduct of clear thinking, yes. But more often, it’s the path to it. That gets said a lot, but not enough. Especially now.

Because so much of what passes for writing today is brand-building in disguise. And to be clear, I do that too. There’s value in sharpening your message, attracting the right people, building leverage.

But it’s a different muscle. A different outcome.

That kind of writing should have a purpose: Who are you speaking to? What are you known for? What do you help with? All of that takes time to figure out. It’s a strategic act.

But this other kind of writing—the personal, reflective, disorganized kind—needs no justification. Everyone should be doing it.

Especially the people who don’t think they need to.