It’s a gray, drizzly Saturday morning. I woke up early and listened to an interview with Samnath Subramanian about JBS Haldane as I boiled a pot of chai and finished some dishes from my lazy Friday evening. I marveled at Haldane, a multidimensional man of many virtues and not without his share of imperfections. Ace geneticist, pioneer of the use of mathematics in biology, originator of the primordial soup hypothesis for the origin of life, popular science and sci-fi writer, trench fighter against the nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, longtime defender of Stalin*, and much more.
Do we write to communicate, or to think? All seasoned writers that I have met would have readily and enthusiastically agree that writing and thinking are inextricably intertwined, but we seem to lose sight of this when we evaluate or even simply read others (or our own?) work. So how do we respect the Janus in writing?
I am a slow writer. I often spend an hour drafting an email that takes the recipient no more than two minutes to read (and maybe a few extra minutes to respond). Or it takes me days to write the outline for a manuscript. This happens despite constant self-reminders that when it comes to writing, rewriting is the real name of the game, and that a good first draft is one that helps me write a second draft. I am usually pleased with the end result of my writing, but as my network and responsibilities grow, this slow writing seems to be getting increasingly unsustainable.