— Why I Write

By Jane Sonnenschein · March 12, 2026

Some people do not lack ideas.

Quite the opposite. They have too many, and they come too quickly.

They do not arrive one by one. They come all at once—emotion, memory, judgment, association, everything appearing together.

You have only just understood one thing when, a second later, another, deeper thought has already covered it over.

And then you begin to doubt yourself:

Did I ever really think this through?

Was I just caught up in the emotion of the moment?

Am I overthinking again?

But eventually I realized something.

It was not that my thoughts were not deep enough. The problem was that my inner flow was moving much faster than my ability to hold on to it.

Conversation Is Like the Scenery You See While Running Through the Mountains

When I talk with someone—especially someone who can really follow where my thoughts are going—it feels a little like running through the mountains.

One scene after another flashes past.

You see it. You feel it. Sometimes you are even overwhelmed by it.

But there is one problem:

You do not have a camera with you.

All you can do is look with your eyes, keep running with your body, and try to remember what you felt in that moment.

Then, when you finally stop, you realize you cannot quite explain it anymore:

What exactly did I just see?

Not because it was unimportant.

But because the flow moved too quickly for memory to keep it.

Human Memory Is Not a Hard Drive

We tend to overestimate how reliable memory is.

The human brain is not a computer. Things do not simply stay there forever as long as we do not delete them.

Memory feels more like a water mark left on a table.

For a while, it is clear. But as new things arrive, the older traces slowly get pushed aside.

This is especially true for people whose thoughts move quickly. New ideas keep arriving every day, covering over the ones that came before.

And eventually, you are left with a strange kind of blankness:

I remember that I once figured out so many things.

But if you ask me to explain them now, I cannot say anything.

Or I know I once had a strong opinion about something, but now I cannot remember what it was at all.

Writing Is a Flag Planted on a Mountaintop

Eventually I understood that, for me, writing is not mainly about expressing something for other people to read.

It is more like this:

When I truly reach a certain place, I plant a flag there.

Not to prove how far I have climbed or how capable I am.

But simply to confirm one thing:

I really was here.

It was not an illusion. It was not just an emotion. It was not something I told myself to feel better.

The words are the evidence.

When I look back, I can see the path I took, the perspective I had, and the conclusions I reached at that moment.

Maybe the person I was then was still immature.

But the flag is still there, reminding me:

You made it this far.

That part of the journey was not wasted.

Why People Who Turn Inward May Need Writing Even More

The world encourages us to look outward.

Because the outside world gives us faster results, clearer labels, and more immediate feedback.

But people who naturally turn inward often take a different path.

Their growth is not always linear.

Sometimes it happens in sudden leaps.

And if those leaps are never recorded, even they themselves may eventually begin to wonder whether they ever really moved forward.

That is why, for people like this, writing is not simply a task.

It is a way of catching yourself before part of you disappears.

I Am Not a Mentor, and I Do Not Want to Teach Anyone

I do not write these things because I want to tell you what you should do.

I am simply marking the road I have walked.

If you also happen to be someone whose mind is always full of thoughts, whose inner flow moves quickly, and who often has the experience of “finally understanding something, only to forget it again,” then perhaps you know what I mean.

And if you are not, that is fine too.

Some words are not written for everyone.

Sometimes they exist simply to plant a flag inside a fast-moving inner world.

A flag that tells me:

I was here. 

This essay is also available in other languages:

Chinese version：为高速心流立一面旗——我为什么要写作

German version: Eine Fahne im schnellen Gedankenstrom – Warum ich schreibe