This post makes a forceful case for writing more essays. It argues that essay writing is not just a creative habit or a career tool, but a defense against the shallow, reactive information environment created by social media and AI. Essays help people think more clearly, develop real beliefs, and create meaning rather than passively consuming prepackaged conclusions.
1. Why Essays Matter
The author frames essays as one of the best tools for learning faster, thinking more deeply, expressing ideas with precision, and resisting replacement by automation. But the argument goes beyond personal advantage. Essay writing is presented as a way to strengthen the mind itself in an era where attention is constantly fragmented.
The post warns that we are living through a massive age of fake thinking, where people feel informed without developing the capacity to understand reality in a coherent way.
2. The Polluted Information Environment
The next section explains why the current media ecosystem is so damaging. Social feeds and AI-generated content reward engagement more than truth, and that gradually pollutes the public information environment.
The essay borrows from Daniel Schmachtenberger's "metacrisis" framing to explain how rivalrous dynamics, substrate consumption, and exponential technology can combine into civilizational danger. In that context, low-effort information is not harmless. It trains attention, shapes identity, and influences whether people can think through large-scale problems at all.
3. Slow Content and the Meaning Economy
The author contrasts fast content with slow content. Fast content gives people conclusions without requiring real thought. Slow content, including essays and serious long-form conversation, asks both writer and reader to participate in the work of making sense.
That is why essays matter so much. Articles package existing knowledge, but essays are a process of discovery. They help writers test what they actually believe and create something that can influence readers for years.
The post also argues that meaning is becoming a scarce premium good. As AI accelerates content production, what becomes more valuable is not more information, but content that helps people organize consciousness, experience depth, and arrive at insight.
3.1. Ordered Consciousness
Meaning is described here as a state that emerges when attention is invested in a challenging but intelligible activity. Fast content increases psychological entropy. Slow content can create order.
This creates an opportunity for "value creators" who publicly wrestle with ideas, document their learning honestly, and contribute to a healthier information commons.
4. Practical Advice for Writing Essays
The final section gives practical guidance:
- write to discover, not to perform
- choose topics you genuinely care about
- resist templates until you have your own structure
- question whether you really believe what you are writing
- curate your inputs carefully
- build a body of work rather than chasing a content calendar
The recommendation is to start on platforms that still reward long-form thought, especially X and Substack.
Conclusion
The core message is that essay writing is both a personal discipline and a civic act. It sharpens thought, protects against passive intellectual decay, and helps build a more meaningful public discourse. In a world full of instant takes and AI summaries, the ability to think in public with honesty and depth becomes more valuable, not less.