Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

Writing is hard. Atul Gawande, whom you should definitely be reading, says it’s harder than surgery.

Last night I had a look at some of the posts I’ve written over the past two years, mostly to double check my feelings on this design. I am deeply satisfied with how the text looks on the screen, so this redesign is probably safe from the ax. I’m also relieved that most of what I’ve written since September isn’t completely awful. But how, exactly, did I churn out 241 posts in a year? Granted, not all of it was great and there was a high proportion of haiku, but in retrospect the output is mystifying.

Academic writing has a characteristic tone, full of precision and caution. This forces the author to inhabit a strange grammatical realm, as if a scavenger hunt is being conducted in the passive voice. This was found by Jones and McGill, the opposite was found by McCracken. Data is magically animate. It can indicate, it can suggest, and it can support. Needless to say, my writing has gotten a little specific. I had no trouble writing a paper that included the words “multisite electrophysiological recording” and “corticomotoneuron,” but the more free-flowing ideas aren’t flowing so freely.

So, refocus. Did I ever tell you why I started this site? I mean, yes, I had to defeat some Nazis (incidentally, I’m excited for Crystal Skull), but there’s another reason.

I talk to myself. Whenever I’m alone and my speech center isn’t occupied with something external, I just start talking. I hear it’s fairly common. I do this when I make a sandwich and when I use the bathroom (two ends of a spectrum, really). When I walk down the street without an iPod, I mutter quietly to myself like a crazy person. The topic matter varies. Sometimes it’s dialogue from a recently watched movie, sometimes I’m composing a presentation or an e-mail. Sometimes it’s a glimpse of the elaborate fantasy world that I’ve maintained since the age of fourteen. It’s always there, like the hum of a fluorescent lamp that fills an otherwise silent room.

The site gives me the opportunity to focus my thoughts into something coherent, and in the process, share those thoughts with someone besides myself. Now all I have to do is scour off the rust, get back in the saddle, and fire up the cliché engine.