I’m begging you to write essays

Essays are the ultimate tool for learning deeply. And you might just see them as a boring old school assignment. But that is so far from the truth. Because writers like Orwell, like nature, like Newton, they've used the essay as a medium of further ideas. Ideas which changed our conception of politics, of philosophy, of how we see the universe itself. I've wrote easily over a thousand essays, both long and short, and in all sorts of different formats. And they've been the reliable

backbone of my learning for years now. I love them. And in fact, everything you watch here on YouTube pretty much, including my videos, started as an essay. So, they're everywhere and they're great and you can use them, too. So, we'll look at the French origin story of the essay as a format, why they're so damn great for your retention and your understanding, and finally, how you can make them a part of your own learning with all the different styles, mediums, and techniques. And I promise

you, there's something for everyone. So, let's get into it. Now, the word essay comes from the French essay, which means to try or to attempt. And I want you to remember that because it's very important later on. It's a format credited to the French Renaissance philosopher Michelle de Monten. And he used his own famous collection of essays to explore each and every little aspect of human nature and really himself. He would write essays on things like idleness or on cruelty and even more

wild things like cannibalism. Now Francis Bacon borrowed this technique and really popularized it in England. And from there it boomed across all of Europe and it was the format for discourse of all kinds across the Atlantic. Ralph Waldo Emerson used them to make social commentary. Thomas Payne used the essay for political arguments on American independence, on abolitionism, and on governance in general. And Friedri Nature took on a more philosophical approach, using them

to write about morality and culture. And finally, in the modern age, it's taken the form of video, and we can now spend an hour learning about the psychological horror of Garfield. It's just great. I love it. So, the point is, the essay comes in many different forms, and that's part of what makes it so great. But what is it still? Like we haven't answered that question. What does it mean to write an essay? Now the actual definition of an essay is

pretty loose. But generally speaking, and don't police me on this, but generally speaking, they are short pieces of writing that exist to explain or describe or argue something. And now the big question, why are essays so powerful? Remember what I said earlier? Because the secret is in their name. If SA means to try, then it shows us that the very act of writing an essay is learning in and of itself. It's an investigation because learning is not this end result. It's not a wall that

you hit. There's no end goal. There's no master prestige. There's no end to it. You're like Cisphus. You're constantly pushing and trying and learning and investigating, exploring, or as the French would say, "Saya." Now, back in the day when I was just a wee lad, I used to see essays as this grand project that had to be perfect. The structure had to be spot-on. The points had to be perfect. The details had to be there. And while that's a good mentality, and I

understand why I thought that, it's not the case. Essay writing should be seen more as a problem-solving method where the process, the means, is more important than the end. You're not writing so that you can have a finished essay. You can burn it at the end for all I care., that's what we did with our ones at the end of school. The point of writing an essay is to give yourself the chance to think because the ideas in your head, they're scattered. They're unclear. They're vague. You

don't really know what . But as soon as you put them onto paper, they become real. They become expressed into the world. And only then do you have the perspective to see them and to really judge them properly. Think of it like stepping back in order to fully appreciate a painting and understand it. Because when an idea is in your head, you think it better than you do. But as soon as you're asked to explain it, you're stumped. Nothing's coming out. You're struggling. You're

overconfident. And you think you knew more than you did. When an idea is on paper, it's separate from you. You can see it. You can examine it. You can criticize it. You can see if it even makes sense and if you're not just waffling completely. I like to think of it like a mirror. Cuz sometimes I wake up in the morning, I get ready, and I leave the house without looking in the mirror at once. And then I come home, see my reflection and think, " was I looking like that the whole day?"

Yeah, I was. And I can only spot these flaws later because I saw I had a new perspective. I could see what was I guess wrong with my hair or what was wrong with my face or whatever. And writing is very much the same. You are given this new perspective and you can check if it makes sense. And the process of writing in itself is important because you have to take these vague and scattered thoughts and give them some rational linear order and that is hard and that

is really what intelligence is and essay writing is the ultimate test of that. And finally essay writing forces you to use your own words. There's no more hiding behind any copy pastes or just boring what someone else said. You have to explain it as you understand it. And that is the ultimate proof that you've understood it. It's the Fineman technique. And I won't go on about that now. But if you cannot explain something in your own words, then you don't understand it. And essays

force you to do exactly that. If this very idea intimidates you, then I would bet that comes from a place of perfectionism. And, I understand that, don't get me wrong. But I think there's a pressure on yourself to produce this beautiful piece of work. And you treat the essay like it's a flawless display of knowledge that has no fault. And it really isn't. Half the I write in Obsidian is probably wrong or at least missing something or only part of the full