I don’t like writing

I don’t like writing. It’s tough. It’s awkward. It’s you being “you” and putting yourself out there.

But it’s a necessary thing.

Because it’s the only way to get what’s in your head out where someone else can actually use it. They read it, they push back on it, they take a piece with them.

And how would anyone find you otherwise?

The best example I know is a cook who sent a magazine something nobody asked for.

Anthony Bourdain was a working chef when he wrote an essay about what really goes on in restaurant kitchens and sent it to The New Yorker. Unsolicited. They ran it in April 1999, and the day after it came out there was a news crew waiting for him outside jury duty.

That essay became the world-renowned book: Kitchen Confidential. That book led to the travel shows. And the shows featured folks like Barack Obama, because he was unabashedly himself — and people respected that.

He went to places most people avoided. Brought up conversations on topics those before him were told not to bring up. Ate with those already sitting down around him. No lectures. Just simple meals and conversations. But in a way that had an impact on the lives around him.

He’s been gone since 2018 and the impact is still being felt.

Anything can be left behind. A book. A title. A wall of plaques with your name on them. That part is easy, and plenty of people manage it.

Leaving it better is the harder thing. He changed how people saw whole countries — places they had only ever been told to be afraid of. Nobody gave him that job. He made it himself, out of an essay a magazine never asked for.

There’s a line of his on the front page of this site. It’s there for this exact reason.

“The journey changes you — it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”

So write the awkward thing and send it. You have no idea what it becomes.

Leave something good behind.