Mill is trying to figure out what he believes is true, and what he can stand for, and how to live. But the way he does it is, at first glance, the opposite of feeling: he is constructing a system of thought, a philosophy. He is hunting down the contradictions in his intuitions and his thoughts; he insists on finding ways of thinking that allow him to resolve these contradictions.

Importantly, he did this in writing. Using writing as a tool to understand yourself and create coherence in your values is a practice that goes back, at least, to Antiquity. Epicurus, Plutarch, Seneca, Cicero, and many others (who we know Mill read as a child, by the way) advocated using ethopoeitical writing to put our thoughts in order, figure out what is true, and shape our character so that we live our values.

Here is one way to approach this kind of writing. You write down your thoughts, feelings, and intuitions about decisions you are making—like a lot of people already do when thinking through hard problems. Then (this is the main difference) instead of letting the note rot on your phone, you set up some system that makes sure that you revisit your reflections when you think about the same topic again. This is a big theme in Seneca and Plutarch and Marcus Aurelius. You want to return to your notes so you can enter into a dialogue with them, refine your thoughts, and integrate past insights with what you’ve learned in the meantime. In this way, the notes act as a self-organizing system that accumulates, integrates, and generalizes intuitions and insights.

Authenticity as dialogue