Why everyone should write more

We’ve got human memory all wrong. 

We think memory is static. Like a filing cabinet, reliable, quiet, and always keeping record.

But memory is alive—just as alive as you and I. And it can’t seem to sit still. As we go through life, doing things and feeling things, memory comes along for the ride. New experiences and emotions can wrinkle, stretch, and twist memory, until it looks…different. 

That’s why I think everyone should write. Write about what makes you happy, sad, angry, confused. Write to remember what really made you feel, because you can’t count on your memory to do that. 

I’m going to take my own advice, and write about an experience that made me feel another emotion: discomfort.

I think of discomfort as having two parts:

• Physical, the tangible, palpable, real pain of your body being under stress. 

• Mental, grappling with uncertainty, lack of control, and the fear of the unknown.

If you’d like to understand what I mean on a…deeper level, here’s a small experiment: 

Stand up, spread your legs wider than your shoulders, and sink down, as if sitting on an imaginary chair. Stay in that position for as long as you can.

Physical discomfort: the shooting pain that coalesces in your thighs as as your muscles contract

Mental discomfort: the places your mind wanders to as the pain intensifies—not knowing when it will end, the desire to push yourself, the fear of giving up too soon (and the niggling annoyance that you’re doing this for the sake of some essay).  

Discomfort, to state the obvious, is not pleasant to feel. I’m averse to even the anticipation of it.

But most of the experiences I hold meaningful have involved some degree of discomfort. 

• The decision to quit my full-time job to freelance was filled with uncertainty 

• When I started a strength training class, I felt weak, awkward, and clumsy

I want to fill life with experiences like this. And that’s why, over the last few months, I’ve been trying to get used to discomfort, by putting myself in situations that make me uncomfortable. This is an ongoing effort, but these are a few things that help me keep going:

• Make it atomic. I think breaking a big thing into smaller parts makes me feel like I’m psychologically in control of the situation. And it turns out that when I perceive myself to be in control, I can persevere for longer than I would’ve thought possible. 

• Surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do. I think I’m socially motivated by the company I keep. I’m trying to leverage how malleable I am to my environment by seeking out people whose qualities I aspire toward—this way, I also end up being more exposed to activities or situations that I’m looking for.

• Follow through on what you said you would do. Doing what I said I will do, even when it’s inconvenient, is helping me build confidence, a sense of self, and the willingness to experiment.

With that, this is an account of a meaningful, uncomfortable experience that I’d like to remember for a long time. 

20:30 PM - Saturday - August 10, 2024 

The sun hasn’t set yet. 

Yash and I are in a meadow cut into the side of a gentle hill that rises above the village. Arya sits in a patch of grass nearby, panting after a game of fetch. We just decided that we’re going on a hike tomorrow. We’ll start by driving to a village called Borgonuovo, climb up the mountain, spend the night in a bivouac, climb down, and drive back home. It's six hours from the trailhead to the summit (according to Mapy), and we’ll be back home by noon on Monday. I’m excited, this is my first time camping, and my mind is drawing images of the insides of the yellow bivouac, and what it would feel like to cook a warm meal on the gas burner at night. 

We need a few things before we go—mostly food—but the local supermarket is closed. As we walk back home, dusk falls, we’ll pick up the supplies in the morning on the way to Borgonuovo. 

11:00 AM - Sunday - August 11, 2024

The bright lights and endless aisles at the supermarket are dizzying. 

This is the third one I’ve been in since morning. I got food at the first one—granola bars, apples, dry fruit, freeze-dried penne, and a bottle of pasta sauce, reportedly made inside an Italian grandma’s kitchen. But we still need batteries and a powerbank. Pizzo Stella, the mountain that we’re going to climb, isn’t all that remote, but it is far enough away that we need to bring a tangled mess of cables into the wilderness to keep our phones on for navigation.

I scan the Italian signs and towering discount displays for the electronics section. I move slowly in my ankle-high hiking shoes, but my mind races. I’ve had a little coffee, Yash and Arya are waiting in the car, an old man pushes a cart right behind me. I find a wall of charging cables of varying shapes and sizes in the far left corner of the store. I pick out what I need, pay, and nearly jog out the door.

1:15 PM - Sunday - August 11, 2024

Arya shakes droplets of water off her fur, takes a few steps forward, and then does it again, vigorously. 

We just reached the dusty parking lot at the trailhead in Borgonuovo. There’s a water fountain that empties into a small trough, and Arya, excited to be outside after the long drive, jumps right in. As she dries herself, Yash rearranges our backpacks, and I walk around with both our phones trying to find stable mobile reception. There are a few parked cars, but no one around. I message my mom to let her know that we won’t be reachable until Monday morning.

The trail begins with a flight of stone stairs, roughly cut into the side of a slope. We walk in silence under the dense foliage. The sun is high in the sky, it’s hot, and I’m out of breath. Bent over the weight of my pack, I lag behind Yash and Arya. I’m frustrated. I reach for my phone to check the time, it’s only been an hour since we started. I try to will myself to move faster, climbing two steps at once, my mind swims a little. I feel giddy. Yash stops to ask if I’m okay—half a bottle of water, a granola bar, and ten minutes later, I am. We keep going, but I’m disappointed in myself and my body, and I’m still moving slow.

4:30 PM - Sunday - August 11, 2024

The sunlight dulls the phone’s display. 

The map on the screen draws the route to Pizzo Stella across concentric brown rings that, Yash explains, represent different altitudes. When the rings are close together, it means that you’re gaining altitude over a shorter distance, in other words, the path is steep; and the opposite is true when the rings are far apart.  

The brown rings for the path ahead seem pretty close together. A light breeze rifles through the grass, leaves, and stone, it’s a beautiful day, we keep walking.

7:00 PM - Sunday - August 11, 2024

As daylight slowly fades, the blue on the lake’s surface deepens. 

We walk along the bank in silence, and I’m close to tears. 

We have a bunch of cables but none of them is compatible with the brand-new power bank. Yash’s phone, which has the map downloaded, has 11% of battery left. Mine has a little more, but there’s no network up here to search for the route. The sun is beginning to set. We pass a hiker making his way down who tells us it’ll take us three hours to reach the bivouac. 

I’m not proud of this, but I panic. We’re going to lose our only source of navigation and light. I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that we’ll find the bivouac in the dark. My voice shakes. I feel exhausted. We’ve been walking uphill for a long time—the village we started hiking from was at around 400 meters, we’re now at 2,000 meters. The bivouac is at 2,600 meters and I do not think I’ll make it there.

9:30 PM - Sunday - August 11, 2024

We’re halfway up a moraine, searching for the yellow outline of the bivouac in the twilight. 

I’m doing surprisingly well now. I figure out that the worst thing that could happen isn’t all that bad. We spend a night out in the open—we have sleeping bags, food, and there are plenty of streams for water. I’m scared of the dark, but hours are finite, and sunrise will come soon enough. The worst-case scenario isn’t all that bad, and that makes me feel…calm. 

Physically, I’m tired, but I’ve found some relief there too. I use the compass on my phone to see what altitude we’re at, and then track how long we take to gain 100 meters in altitude. I know the bivouac’s altitude (2,600 meters), so I roughly measure how long we’ll take to get there. Being able to estimate when the uphill climb would end is comforting.

Yash and Arya are ahead of me. My head is down, looking for the red and white trail markings that are painted on the rocks—and I hear Yash say he can see the bivouac. I follow his gaze, and in the bluish light, there it is. Four walls and a roof.

11:00 AM - Monday - August 12, 2024

My phone compass says we’re at 3,160 meters. The high point of Pizzo Stella.  

The bivouac is at the foothill of a ridge that leads to the summit. We woke up in our sleeping bags, made black coffee, left our bags behind, and started climbing. Three hours later, we’re at the top. We meet a few Italian hikers who climbed the peak from another route. It’s beautiful, everyone’s happy, they give Arya a nickname that I really like: cane alpinista.

Thank you so much for reading! If you’ve made it all the way here, I’d love to hear what you thought about the piece—reply to this email or reach out on Twitter :)