I’m begging you to write essays

Essays are the ultimate tool for learning deeply. And you might just see

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

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

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 sort of the format for discourse of all kinds across the Atlantic. Ralph Waldo Emerson used them

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

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 what does it actually mean to write an essay? Now

the actual definition of an essay is pretty loose. But generally speaking,

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?

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

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.

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

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

essay. You can burn it at the end for all I care. I mean, 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 you know. But as

soon as you put them onto paper, they become real. They become expressed into

become real. They become expressed into the world. And only then do you have the

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 you know it better than you do. But as soon as you're asked to

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 actually 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

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, "Oh 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

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 actually

the process of writing in itself is important because you have to take these vague and scattered thoughts and actually give them some sort of 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

actually have to explain it as you understand it. And that is the ultimate

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 that comes from a place of perfectionism. And you know, I

perfectionism. And you know, I understand that, don't get me wrong. But

I think there's a sort of pressure on yourself to produce this beautiful piece of work. And you treat the essay like

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 picture. I might be chatting I

picture. I might be chatting I might be unclear. I might be making logical errors. And I'm not saying this

logical errors. And I'm not saying this like I'm proud, like it's a good thing and it's okay. It's not. But I am saying it's inevitable. It's part of the

it's inevitable. It's part of the learning process. It's as Miiamoto

learning process. It's as Miiamoto Mousashi said in the book of Five Rings, to transcend retardation, you must first embrace it. Real quote, by the way. No,

embrace it. Real quote, by the way. No,

no cap. Real quote. Essays are acts of investigation. You will make mistakes.

investigation. You will make mistakes.

You will be confused. You will struggle.

And yet, you must write them anyway because that is the only way to discover anything new. For example, whenever I

anything new. For example, whenever I speak about mini essays in Obsidian or or notes in general, I get a few comments saying, "H, what's the point of all this, mate? You're never going to reread them." And it's like, well, first

reread them." And it's like, well, first of all, I do sometimes. So, suck your mom. And second of all, it doesn't

mom. And second of all, it doesn't matter because the revisiting the essay or the note is only half the process.

The other half is writing it. And even

if I never revisited them ever again, it doesn't matter because the actual learning happened during the writing.

And I could delete it immediately after.

It wouldn't matter because I've used it as a chance to think, to learn, to rack my brain. And ultimately, that's what

my brain. And ultimately, that's what matters, right? If all my notes are

matters, right? If all my notes are deleted, who cares? I've learned about them and I've used them as a way to gain more knowledge and more understanding of the world. So yeah, sorry about that was

the world. So yeah, sorry about that was a bit rude, but it was true. Yeah.

[snorts] And to go back to an earlier question, this is probably why schools and universities love the essay. It's a

way for the professor to say, "Here's your title. Here's your topic. Go figure

your title. Here's your topic. Go figure

it out, learn about it, and then write something to prove that you've understood it." They then mark it, give

understood it." They then mark it, give it back to you. You learn from your mistakes and then you do it a thousand times over.

It's not the essay that matters. It's

the writing of the essay. The beauty of the essay is in the process. Writing

essays is great, but only if you're consistent. And to really make it a

consistent. And to really make it a habit, you need a productivity system that helps you use your time wisely.

Now, you want something that's simple and easy to get going, but also effective. And AIFlow, who are

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jumping around. This all connects to your AIFlow calendar where you can drag and drop tasks, you can block out time, and you can get stuff done with maximum focus. One of my big struggles is that I

focus. One of my big struggles is that I procrastinate when I have too much to do and I don't know where to begin. So, I

like the co-pilot feature, which uses AI to learn your work patterns and then give you a suggestion on what to work on next. It takes the friction of

next. It takes the friction of decision-m off your shoulders, and you can just get going right away. There's

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to AIFlow. So, the essay is an incredibly powerful learning tool, but how do you actually go about writing them? Well, there's many ways to do it,

them? Well, there's many ways to do it, and I like to really narrow it down with three features: medium, topic, and style. Now, your essays will be very

style. Now, your essays will be very much unique to you. So, I'm not going to tell you how or what to write. Instead,

I'll give you some suggestions, some pointers, and of course, show you what I do as an example. And from there, it's up to you. First is Medium. Where are

you writing these? Because the first big decision is, are you going to be using pen and paper or will you type them up online? And it's a hard decision because

online? And it's a hard decision because they're both great in their own way.

Now, let's just be real. Pen on paper feels way nicer. It feels more like writing, like proper writing. It feels

more romantic. And beyond that, there's evidence to show that writing with your with a pen or pencil is better for your retention and your understanding. I'll

link some of those papers below. Yes,

it's slower. Yes, it's harder. But

ultimately, that's what we want. We want

it to be we want there to be friction and we want there to be this this grappling and this struggle with ideas because that's how you learn. That's

probably why it activates a broader area of the brain and makes your learning more engaged and intentional. Why is

there a ladybug on the camera? Hey yo,

who's this?

What is that? On the other hand, digital notes have two massive advantages over pen and paper. First, they are infinite, and second, they're organizable. You can

write as much as you want. You can write as many essays as you want, and no matter how big your library gets, you can still carry it around on something as small as your phone. And even if that

is lost or your files are corrupted or whatever, there is syncing, there are backups, there's the cloud, it's going to be okay, unless there's like a nuclear holocaust, but yeah, fair

enough. Notebooks are bulky and while

enough. Notebooks are bulky and while they can store a lot, it adds up fast and sooner or later your room looks like one of a schizophrenic hoarder where you have all these notebooks everywhere.

Notebooks also can't do this. Ink is

static and pages are hard to organize, but digital notes are very flexible. You

can add as much metadata as you want.

You can link them. You can add tags, properties, dates, all of these things which make the structure and the system very convenient and easy. And instead of having to flick through a billion pages

to find what you need, you can just search through all of them instantly.

And if you have a clever system, one that has some thought behind it, you can actually give structure to your thoughts and you can help your future self discover things more easily, which I try

to achieve in my Obsidian system. Now,

digital notes will never be perfect, but we cannot deny that they are more flexible and they will always have more capacity for organization and convenience, you could say. So, we were back the next day cuz I was losing

daylight and it was a disaster. But what

I was saying is at this point you have to narrow in on the program you want to use to type up your notes. And you can use anything really. I like Obsidian because it's simple. It's flexible. It

gets the job done. But the point is to pick something and stick with it because you're never going to get anywhere if you keep switching every month. It's

just procrastination. Now the next thing you want to consider is the style. How

are you going to write these essays?

What's the tone you're going to approach them with? Are they going to be short or

them with? Are they going to be short or long? Are they going to be formal or

long? Are they going to be formal or informal? Now, you can do anything and

informal? Now, you can do anything and the answers to these obviously depend on your goals. Like if you're doing a

your goals. Like if you're doing a research project or if you're just learning for fun and you want to keep things a bit more casual. I'll go into some examples, but first this is what I do. One of my favorite formats is the

do. One of my favorite formats is the mini essay. And this is a short piece of

mini essay. And this is a short piece of writing that covers one point. So, one

mini essay, one point, and nothing else.

Now, this all happens in the context of my obsidian system. And I like this format because they're long enough that you can go into detail and really cover a point well, but they're not so long

that it feels like this laborious task every day that you have to do. So

there's a balance between depth and I guess speed or consistency. Instead of

them being a full essay, they're more of a point within the essay. to then test my knowledge even more. I like to connect these essays to each other because that gives me a chance to sort of see how things relate and it lets me

build this network of knowledge which is good for, you know, having a a full understanding of it. For longer pieces like my script or newsletters, I like to focus on just arguing one major point

and one alone and then I split that up into sections that sort of guide the reader naturally from A to B. I usually

open with my point and then go straight into a story or an analogy or a reference to some other text and then at the end of that I link back to the original point and sort of explain why

they connect or what I'm trying to say essentially. And you know obviously

essentially. And you know obviously that's just a rough plan but it's kind of what I like to do. Now that's just me. So if you need more inspiration

me. So if you need more inspiration still here are some other styles you can use. First is the expository style which

use. First is the expository style which is your classic explainer or wiki style article. And this is clear, it's brief,

article. And this is clear, it's brief, it's hopefully it's objective as possible and it exists to inform the reader of something to describe something. In a similar vein is the

something. In a similar vein is the essay argument where instead of just describing something with blunt facts, you actually push a viewpoint. You use

logic and reason to argue something that you believe in. These will be your opinion pieces and the political commentaries and they will tend to follow a logical structure like this.

Next is the analytical style. And this

happens when you take a topic or a subject or a piece of work and you break it down. You dissect it. You examine

it down. You dissect it. You examine

each part and then you see how it all connects in this bigger picture. And you

often see this in the form of book reviews or literary criticism or anything that is giving a deep analysis to something. This does blend with the

to something. This does blend with the argument style a bit more, but to be fair, they all do. These categories

aren't strict and they will blend into each other in this gray area. The final

broad style is the reflective or personal essay. And this one, you could

personal essay. And this one, you could say, is less academic. It's more

subjective. And this is where the author shares their experiences, their anecdotes, their thoughts, their memories, experiences in order to do something. Maybe they are trying to

something. Maybe they are trying to describe society. Maybe they're doing it

describe society. Maybe they're doing it for themselves. Maybe they're using it

for themselves. Maybe they're using it to make a point or to analyze a period of history or something like that. The

long version of this you could say is a memoir. And on a more intimate level,

memoir. And on a more intimate level, you'll see it in letters or journal entries. And there's lots of famous

entries. And there's lots of famous examples of these. Now, in practice, your style isn't going to fall rigidly into one of these categories. Chances

are, it's going to be a blend of a few of them, and it's going to end up being unique to you. And really, with essay writing, there's no rules. You might

have to learn the rules before you can break them, but ultimately you can go batshit crazy and really write wherever you want. If you're truly lost on where

you want. If you're truly lost on where to start, I would begin with a simple point explanation sort of format where you're just describing something. And

over time as you write, you'll learn more about yourself. You'll see what styles uh work with you and you will find your voice. And remember, the essay doesn't have to be perfectly accurate or

perfectly written. I mean, obviously try

perfectly written. I mean, obviously try not to make up and you should do research still, but just remember the process is what counts. and that process of striving and learning and trying.

Finally comes the topic. What are you going to write about? Now, there are no rules here. You can do literally

rules here. You can do literally anything. But if you're stuck, I would

anything. But if you're stuck, I would consider some prompts. First, you have to write what you're interested in because you can tell when someone doesn't care. It's going to reflect in

doesn't care. It's going to reflect in their writing. It's going to come off as

their writing. It's going to come off as dry, slow, sluggish. And if you really want the pen to flow and the ideas to come, then you have to care about what you're writing. You have to pick

you're writing. You have to pick something that really resonates with you and something you're passionate about, something you think about a lot. That

takes the essay from being dry and boring, maybe as you thought it was, to something fun and rewarding. Secondly,

and this is just my opinion, but I think an essay is best written when it focuses on one point. Because if you try and make it too complicated and you try and argue many different things at the same

time in tangent to each other, I think it dilutes the message. You get

confused, your reader gets confused.

It's harder to pull off and you end up making several points but not making them very well. Instead, I like to pick one argument, one topic, one subject,

one statement and really focus on that and focus on delivering it well. You

don't have much time or space to make a point. So, I think if you focus all of

point. So, I think if you focus all of your effort into one, it's going to turn out better. And that does maybe mean you

out better. And that does maybe mean you have to be precise with what you write about because the essay is short. And if

we focus on this massive topic, we don't really get enough time to go into it properly. So, really, I would recommend

properly. So, really, I would recommend something precise, something you're passionate about, and something that you can wrap up in a short space of time.

And finally, and maybe this is a hot take, but I don't bother with a conclusion or an intro. I like to just get into my point. And if you've made your point well during the essay, you

don't need this redundant paragraph at the end to repeat what you've just said.

It feels it's a waste of time. It It's

boring to be honest because you're not writing anything new. And I'd rather just wrap up my points in a single sentence that really hammers it down and closes the piece of work. Say what you

have to say, get to the point. And once

you've made your point, finish it as soon as possible. Wrap it up. You don't

have to waffle on and, you know, give this outro. Just say what you have to

this outro. Just say what you have to say and finish. If you're curious about my Obsidian system and you want to see how you can set it up yourself, I'll link a video here. And if you want more

advice on how to analyze your books and how to learn before you start writing, I'll also link a a video on analysis here. And as always, I'd love to hear

here. And as always, I'd love to hear your comments. I'd love to hear your

your comments. I'd love to hear your your thoughts on this, what you do differently, what you disagree with me on. And as always, I appreciate you for

on. And as always, I appreciate you for watching. So, thank you very much.

watching. So, thank you very much.