Write To Discover Your Thoughts

One of my most enduring childhood memories is a scene from my mother’s living room, which also served as our dining room.

Our living room had a three-piece sofa set. The sofa set was always covered in colourful crochet ¹pieces that, as a rule, had to be changed every week. We also had a black coffee table and a dark brown cupboard that doubled as the TV stand. On top of this cupboard sat the most precious item in the room: a red, silver-lined Made-in-China Greatwall Television, which beamed black and white pictures from the world into the tiny space I called home.

I remember watching prime-time news, WWE wrestling matches, and events of national significance as aired by the national broadcaster, KBC. National holidays meant no school, and no school meant more TV. While the grown-ups did not allow us to watch cartoons, there was something special about tuning into Independence Day celebrations together on such days. It was the only time the whole family would wake up and have breakfast together while admiring the spectacular display of military might by the Kenyan Armed Forces.

The show off of national assets on the screen sparked currents of fascination that electrified our living room. We marvelled and sighed at the menu of stunts on offer; there were air shows by the Kenyan Air Force, complete with military choppers and fighter jets, while Armoured Personnel Carriers and tanks rolled across the screen as the Kenya Army troops accompanying the machines performed a march past the main stage.

The highlight was when the President arrived in an open-back Land Rover military carriage. On arrival, his first order of business was to inspect a guard of honour.

What fascinated me most as a child was how the soldiers prepared for the guard of honour. First, they assumed a position of attention with their hands hanging straight on either side of their bodies. Their wrists were always straight, their hands cupped, their palms facing the leg with each thumb resting on the first joint of the index finger. With a straight head and the neck vertically aligned with the rest of the body, the soldiers looked forward, maintaining a line of sight parallel to the ground. Then they brought their feet together with the heels and toes in line — legs were straight, with level hips, uplifted chest and squared yet even shoulders.

Next, the soldiers stood in a proper line, the Guard Line, to prepare for inspection. To begin the formation of the Guard Line, the soldier occupying the farthest right position moved in place. His position became the reference point for all the other soldiers standing to his left. The soldier in this position has the fancy title, “Right Flank Man.” After the Right Flank Man took his place, all the other soldiers formed a column by confirming their positions relative to him.

A well-organised squad of 150 to 300 soldiers was ready for the inspection in minutes. The speed, efficiency and meticulous attention to detail displayed by the armed forces stuck with me.

The Sentence is Your Guard Line
Language is a tool that humans, as a species, evolved to communicate complex ideas. Non-verbal communication can go as far as conveying emotions like contempt, pleasure and approval. To express how we feel and think about complex ideas like culture, science, politics, and spirituality, facial expressions and gestures have their limitations.

For this reason, we devised patterns of sound to express higher-order concepts. When our thoughts transform from electrical impulses into the physical vibrations of sounds, which we call language, humans go beyond displaying emotion to sharing meaningful ideas.

Sometimes, the seemingly coherent thoughts in your head can disappoint whenever you try to express yourself. If you have ever had great ideas come out like your niece’s favourite mushy slushy² when trying to speak about a trending topic during that fancy company cocktail with Senior Management in attendance, do not fret. It happens to the best of us.

The good news is that if you care enough, a free and accessible solution is available. All you need is a pen and paper or your favourite notetaking app.

The tool is writing.

I do not mean writing to churn out the next non-fiction best seller. I am talking about writing to discover what you think about a topic or a problem. Not what your mum or your best friends say, not what social media or the news say, just your perspective. It does not have to be much. For a start, five sentences are enough.

When you start doing this, something special happens. This is how William Zinnser explains the magic of writing down your thoughts:

“… we write to find out what we know and what we want to say. I thought of how often as a writer I had made clear to myself some subject I had previously known nothing about by just putting one sentence after another—by reasoning my way in sequential steps to its meaning.

Zinsser, William. Writing to Learn: How to Write - and Think - Clearly About Any Subject at All (pp. 5-6). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

As Zinnser says, when you feel uncertain about your opinion on a topic, writing can open up the mysteries of the subject in a way you can understand. The strength of Zinnser’s advice is not only that you get to write out your opinion, but also the fact that you get insight into your knowledge of the topic.

Making the effort to write your opinion in five simple sentences is an exercise in clarity. Even if you cannot produce anything meaningful, at the very least, you will have discovered you know nothing. This discovery of your ignorance itself is clarity. Far better than the jumble of ideas that come out of your mind when you try to speak on a topic.

Written Thoughts Are To Your Mind What The Guard of Honour Is To a Dignitary
Sentences are your guard line, your words are like soldiers, and your brain is the dignitary inspecting the guard of honour after you finish writing. Let us look to Zinsser once again as he describes what makes writing such a powerful tool for self-discovery:

“…writing is linear and sequential. If sentence B logically follows sentence A, and if sentence C logically follows sentence B, I’ll eventually get to sentence Z.”

Zinsser, William. Writing to Learn: How to Write - and Think - Clearly About Any Subject at All (pp. 39-40). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

An analogy to help us understand what Zinsser is trying to say here is that of soldiers forming a Guard Line for inspection. Like soldiers, one after another dressing up for the line, our sentences are like troops presenting themselves to us.

Writing is discovering how we uniquely see the world and, most importantly, the structures that support our thinking. The only way to open our brains to inspect our thought structures is by putting them down. Like soldiers in a march past, we know our thoughts best where we can see them, on the page.

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As always, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this piece as much as I had fun making it.

1. The rule in our home was that, once a week, the crochet pieces had to be changed. The second part of the rule was that whoever replaced them must wash the old ones. I hated this chore, and I did not like the maker of the rule, especially when it was my turn.

2. A favourite afternoon treat in primary school was a Kenyan version of an ice pop. Five Kenyan shillings would be enough to get me five stone-cold ice pops straight from a hawkers coolbox. Out of boyish impatience, I would pummel them with my fists to make a kind of slush that was easy on the mouth. I didn’t know it then, but I had invented my slushy when it was still not yet a thing in Kenya. How cool :)