Why not just sit and think? Well, there precisely is Montaigne’s great discovery. Expressing ideas helps to indeed form them, helps is way too weak a word. Nearly all of what results in my essays I only looked at whenever I sat down seriously to write them. This is exactly why I write them.

Within the things you write in school you might be, in theory, merely explaining yourself to your reader. In a real essay you’re writing for yourself. You’re thinking out loud.

But not quite. Just like inviting people over forces you to definitely clean up your apartment, writing something that other individuals will read forces you to definitely think well. […]