With the majority of content now being generated by AI, it’s more important than ever to be writing without it. This blog is where I experiment, share, and find my own voice. Writing is thinking and, without it, I feel I’d just stop evolving. This post shares how I approach writing.

# Writing

Every time I sit down and start a new post, I do it for me. Long flights, train rides, a busy cafe. Wherever it is, I am overcoming a tendency to consume content and, instead, I produce something. Adding to the world while sharpening my senses of it.

Most of what I write won’t be great, but creativity flows as if from a faucet. You need to let it flow for a while, purging the wastewater, to get to something that is clear and genuinely good. That’s why I strive to write as much as I can and that’s why you’ll find a bunch of topics in here, from biology to economics.

Writing distills thinking. At times, shared knowledge will be useful to others. But more importantly, it’s useful to me. It’s only while writing that I dive deep enough into something to develop my own ideas, my own vision, and my own bet on what the future might look like. Shaping the world, instead of being shaped by it. For that kind of deep thinking to happen, I need to set time and senses apart and line one thought after the other. I need to roast each one of them, until I am convinced I’m not deluding myself, and that what I have reflects what’s out there.

Often my writing is inspired by the books I read. At times by articles, or movies. Not often enough, by conversations with others (online and offline). I write here because I want to spark more of those conversations, encouraging people to tell me “I have read your thing and I think it’s wrong. Here’s why: …”.

Writing also crystallizes memories. I don’t have that many posts here. Still, they are testament to what’s on my mind on a given day. And I already find myself going back to it. To ground myself back in that learning, or to remember how I solved a particular problem.

# Your voice

At first, writing will be awkward. Actually, it might always remain awkward. But still worth doing it. The more you write, the more you’ll develop your own voice. Your own way of expressing your thoughts, or of trying to get readers to hear your reasons. You’ll learn to be sharp and dry, or playful. How to do it for fun, and how to maximize for impact.

In this sense, writing (when done well) is a powerful lever. Writing something once then has a zero marginal cost. A good idea, written down, will spread seeds, evolve, grow roots, and be discussed and improved. The (small) internet can help amplify those ideas. You’ll see them withstanding the test of time, or falling to it. It will help you get messages through, be it at work or in life.

Your voice then develops into your personal brand. A way for readers to connect with something they are unfamiliar with, to learn from you, and to make the world better connected, rather than more individually focused on oneself.

# Own it

The internet was born through collaboration, freedom, and a tiny, healthy dose of resistance to hierarchies and authorities. We’ve come a long way from there.

Today, it’s easy to find Web content being exploited, monetized, or walled to squeeze value from users or keep them captive. It’s a remunerative opportunity for both corporations and a few individuals, and there’s little wrong with it. In some cases the result is net positive: enabling ventures that would have not been possible otherwise, and connecting people who’d be otherwise lost. The downside is that whenever there’s money to be made, we are naturally led to manipulate things and maximize profits. That’s why social media users often appear instead of being: adopting no one’s voice to conform to trends and seek visibility (or money, or fame, or status).

It doesn’t have to be that way. Turn a corner of the internet into something truly yours. Make it your place to voice your thoughts. Cultivate your own digital garden and spread what grows from it freely and widely. Encourage people to engage with you, reach out to them yourself, and share ideas, half-baked thoughts, and the challenges you face: they might be facing them as well.

For this blog, that means embracing open formats (all posts are Markdown), opensource software (Jekyll), and open access to the source (on GitHub, for the time being). Cloudflare hosts the blog itself, but I own the domain and all content is static. I could self-host it, or switch to another provider at any time. Readers can subscribe through RSS and I could add email delivery at some point. Social media isn’t for me, but I am experimenting with syndication on Bluesky with a simple post that links back to each article.

This way, my voice remains my own while it reaches those that’d like to hear it.

# About AI

As useful as AI can be, using it to write will strip you of your own voice. It won’t think for you, it won’t help you develop your own ideas, and, worse, it will make what you do, write, and publish just the same as what everyone else is doing.

I write all posts on this blog myself. I don’t start from AI blobs, nor do I have the AI rewrite drafts (since that would kill my own voice). When I am done with an article, I will ask it to read it and to point out faults. Then, I’ll ask for a diff of typos or words that don’t “feel right” in English. I’ll manually type all edits and usually discard most of them. All typos and weird sentences left are my own.

I also use AI to research and quickly (in)validate assumptions and test hypotheses. Although it still has a few obvious quirks, it would be a disadvantage not to familiarize myself with it or not to become extremely good at understanding its strengths and weaknesses.

This blog being opensource means that, eventually, it might become part of the AI corpus itself and lose any attribution. If any of that will happen, either my writing will have turned out not to be original or to be good enough to activate the AI’s attention.

# Closing thoughts

If you made it this far, I hope you found something that resonates with you. Some of this post’s values have stuck with me for a while (openness, curiosity, hunger for reading). Some contradict each other (I can’t use social media, but I am comfortable speaking and writing in public). Other values keep evolving with me. I was an AI skeptic at first, until I pushed myself to learn it and use it. It’s hard to guess what’s ahead: although nothing is guaranteed, I am optimistic about where we’ll find ourselves.

If you don’t have a blog yet, go start one! It doesn’t need to be fancy, it just needs to be yours. If you already have one, I’d love to read it: let me know where to find it.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time! 👋