Writing as an Exercise in Wisdom

Flannery O’Connor once quipped something to the effect,

“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”

There is a truth to this statement that extends beyond one’s personal journal, though that is often a great place to start writing. This is also true of stories, poems, and essays.

And, it’s one of the reasons we teachers require students to write, especially essays. Essays are not busy work, and in my professional opinion, they should never be used as such by a teacher. Nor should they simply be assignments that focus strictly on form or style and earn letter grades, per se. 

Essay as a noun means a short literary composition on a subject. But the verb essay means to make an attempt or put one’s subject to the test. Writing essays help us discover the difference between what we think and what we actually know about a subject or position on a subject. 

This is the reason I will always allow my students to adjust their thesis statement as they research, analyze texts, and write. Honest writing frequently changes our own mind about or at least nuances our position on a subject we are considering.

When we write, we discover not only what to think but we discover how to think wisely (assuming we are virtuous people) because we can hold our words before us and evaluate them. Others can hold our words and evaluate them too.

Writing can help us analyze the strengths and weaknesses of our arguments, see holes or fallacies in our logic, and learn how to hold multiple thoughts or competing arguments together, cogently. 

Ultimately, writing helps us learn what we really think by reading what we really said. Then we have the proper knowledge and understanding of our own thoughts to discover whether or not we agree with ourselves—and whether or not we should change our minds. 

This is, itself, a kind of exercise in wisdom.