And literacy involves more than just accessing what others have written, but having the agency to actually contribute back to the written word. To articulate—from your own subjective, distinctive, and highly contingent experience—what you think about other people’s ideas. To be a participant in the world.

Universal literacy is one of the most hard-won victories of educators and activists of the past few centuries; the right to access written language, scholarship, and formal education was highly contested and has only been taken for granted in recent memory.

But it’s doing the work that makes you ready . You become capable of writing an essay by writing the essay . You become capable of writing a novel by writing the novel .

For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not...your work disappoints you. You gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume... See more

After 2 years, I’m convinced that reading and writing are the most dignified and worthy activities that anyone can do—and, in fact, are activities that everyone should do .

And when it comes to the work of writing—which is also the work of thinking, reading, and living—I’ll say this. As a human being, intellectual discovery and gratification are your birthright. Nothing is more worthy, and more self-actualizing, than taking your interests seriously and pursuing them as far as you can go.

if you think of writing as a process , then you understand that writing badly is the only way to begin writing well, and the output isn’t the piece—it’s the mind that labored earnestly to produce the piece.

The real reason to read literature is that it is an autotelic activity—it has inherent, intrinsic value, even if it doesn’t make you more intelligent, attractive, cultured, respected. But it’s still meaningful to read for the wrong reasons.