Tag / writing

by Nathan Coumbe

The em dash exists for a reason

And I’ll be damned if I stop using them now. I’ve been using em dashes since I started writing—because they work.

They do things that other parenthetical devices like commas or parentheses don’t do.

They add force to your arguments. They separate potentially unrelated but still relevant or useful thoughts—have you ever noticed this?—from the point you’re making.

And for those of you who say that there’s no way to recreate them on a computer keyboard…

Shift + Option + – (for Mac users) gives you —.

Here are 11 of them: — — — — — — — — — — —

Also, there are two other types of dashes.

– (press only the dash key) is a hyphen most often used to separate compound words.

– (made by pressing Option + – on a Mac) is called an en dash and can be used to separate things like dates (April 20–23).1

And then you have the glorious em dash.

Why do they show up so often in AI writing? It’s simple: most of the best writers in history made (and still make) liberal use of it—because it works! And because AI has imbibed all the writing ever written, it also uses it quite often.

Does AI use them too much? Absolutely.

Does that mean we should stop using them? Absolutely not.

So what’s the solution? You get really damn good at writing.

Develop a style of your own, a voice, a way of writing that sounds like you—and only you. So when people read your writing, they know that you did it, not an AI.

And you’ll be able to use fifty em dashes in a single piece if you wanted to, and no one would care because they would know, simply because of your personal style, that you were generous enough to take time out of your day to share something worth reading.

If you write well—and like yourself—you’ll be fine.

(Ann Handley actually beat me to this a long while back. But I was so incensed by no less than 7 posts about this yesterday that I had to say something.)

  1. Unfortunately, there is a feature in WordPress’s code that prevents the three different dashes from rendering properly. I didn’t realize this until after I publish. So if you’re reading this on my site instead of in email, you won’t be able to see the difference between them.

    You can test this for yourself: pull up a blank document somewhere on your computer and try all three keystroke combinations.

    Also, this is a great reason to subscribe to my email newsletter, so you’ll see it rendered the way it’s supposed to. ↩︎
by Nathan Coumbe

The thing about AI (no thanks, Claude)

It makes bad stuff better.

It makes poor writers better. So too for unskilled graphic designers or amateur financial analysts.

But also spam, scams, and cyber threats. It used to be easy to see a phishing email for what it was, but the Nigerian princes are gone.

At the same time, it also makes the great stuff worse.

Great writing becomes banal and repetitive. AI art looks like… AI art (or the boring stuff you see in hotels).

It brings the good stuff down while bringing the bad stuff up. In short, it averages it out.

And that makes sense because LLMs imbibe everything that exists—the great, the good, the average, and the bad.

And in most subjects, the bad always outnumbers the great (or even the good). This lowers the average.

The key is to know what to use it for.

If you’re bad at something, AI will make you better at it. So use it.

But if you’re good (or especially if you’re great) at something… Think twice before handing it off to AI.

I ran this post through Claude and, based on its knowledge of my style, asked it for feedback. Claude told me the post had great bones, but it also told me to remove certain items and phrasing… Precisely the same things that make my writing style what it is.

It told me to remove a tiny explanatory sentence as well (do you know which one?). And I refused to do it, because there are plenty of people who still don’t know how this stuff works. That knowledge is central to the premise of this post.

It also recommended that I end the post with something like, “Average is the enemy of excellence.” How many times have you heard that before? It felt too much like a motivational poster for me—I can already see the kitten attempting pullups with that as the headline.

So, I think I should actually end this post by saying, “Claude, your suggestions were appreciated, but wrong.”1

And that is precisely my point.

  1. I did make a couple of tiny grammatical changes it suggested, which did actually improve the post. And sometimes, Claude’s recommendations actually do improve my writing.

    And, somewhat ironically, Claude did improve this post by giving me feedback, even though the feedback turned out to be flawed. It proved my point in real time. So I must give credit when it’s due.

    But more often than not, Claude’s suggestions make my writing worse because it no longer sounds like me. ↩︎
by Nathan Coumbe

The brilliant thinker

The brilliant thinker you love and admire, the one whose words you read and ideas you consume without hesitation?

She doesn’t write because she’s brilliant.

She’s brilliant because she writes.

Writing is thinking, the maxim goes. Or as Leslie Lamport said:

“If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.“

Writing comes before brilliant insights, not after. It’s the method by which we obtain them.

If you want to have more, and better, ideas, spend a little time writing each and every day.

by Nathan Coumbe

On being remembered

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”

But how do you write things worth reading in a world where so few people are reading anymore?

Most of what is on the Internet is video and garbage. It’s not worth watching. Yet that’s the medium that we consume. 

Perhaps the modern equivalent is to do things worth making a TikTok reel about.

Old Ben must be rolling in his grave.

by Nathan Coumbe

The real work of a teacher

Maybe your job isn’t to teach the class a mass of information.

Instead, your job may be to show students you believe in them. That they have value. That they are anything but average. 

Analyze a great piece of writing they submitted with the rest of the class.

Have them teach a math solution to a concept they’ve grasped.

Give them the opportunity, as my middle school teacher did, to stand up and lecture on a great moment in history on which they have become self-motivated experts.

Do your best to get them the information, but more importantly, help them understand their worth as human beings.

After that, the learning will take care of itself.

H/t to Ryan Holiday for this one.

by Nathan Coumbe

Deliberate practice and writing

Deliberate practice is essential for developing thinking and writing skills.

But how do you do that when it seems like such a nebulous skill to develop?

You practice by extracting the gist of an idea and writing it down in your own words. Then do it again tomorrow.

Now you’re a writer.

by Nathan Coumbe

Atomic writing

Atomic Habits by James Clear consistently tops every bestseller list.

And for good reason: if you follow the ideas, you’ll improve your habits. Improve your habits, and you improve your days. Improve your days, and you improve your life.

What’s the saying? “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”

Emerson definitely said it better than I. But it means the same thing: your daily habits lead to your lasting legacy.

Which brings me to an idea I presented to someone the other day.

A friend told me he wanted to write. And he’d considered going the “Stephen King” route, writing 2,000 words a day, but he seemed daunted by that prospect.

I agreed. That’s a lot to commit to at the beginning. So I suggested he go the Atomic Habits route instead.

What’s the smallest version of that habit he could reasonably commit to?

My idea: write one sentence every day. Then don’t break the streak.

I find it hard to believe that anyone reading this can’t come up with at least one original thought every day.

It doesn’t have to be brilliant. In fact, I guarantee that 50% of your ideas will be “below average.” But so what? Half my blog posts are below average—that’s the definition!

It doesn’t have to be brilliant—it just has to exist! Do that for 30 days, and the 31st sentence will be infinitely better than the 1st one.

A writer writes. So be a writer and start writing!

by Nathan Coumbe

The purpose of this blog (according to Claude)

As you may have noticed, I’ve struggled to publish posts on this blog consistently. 

Why? I feel I lost the thread, and I started to doubt its original purpose. I felt it needed to be somehow “more”—that I needed to build an audience or have an overarching reason for running it. 

I voiced those doubts to my new friend—and sometimes counselor—Claude (an AI tool, not a real person). 

It was such an enlightening conversation (can you call it such?) that I wanted to share parts of it here, and then make clear why this blog exists. 

Claude’s Initial Thoughts

Note: I’m editing these answers for length, as many were quite long.

Initially, I asked Claude to research the blog and tell me what he (it?) thought the blog’s purpose was.

Nathan Coumbe’s blog appears to be a personal reflection platform focused on philosophy, self-improvement, and practical wisdom for everyday life. The blog features content about stoicism, leadership, and philosophical perspectives…. The writing style appears to be reflective and conversational, with short, thoughtful posts that combine philosophical concepts with practical applications.

The overall “point” of the blog seems to be to share personal insights and wisdom that can help others navigate life’s challenges through a blend of ancient philosophy (particularly stoicism) and modern practical application. Nathan appears to be using the blog as a platform to distill and share his own learning journey and reflections with others who might benefit from these perspectives.

Claude, Meet Nathan

After reading through his answers, I told Claude that I was, in fact, Nathan, to which he said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Claude then asked what I thought the blog’s purpose was; I told him it was to stretch my writing and thinking muscles in public. Claude, wisely, pointed out that many writers and thinkers began their writing in such a way: Montaigne’s essays began as personal reflections, and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations were never meant for publication at all (its original title was actually “To Himself” because it was his personal journal). 

The Struggle

After pointing out the similarities to other philosophical writers, I expressed some doubt and frustration with my lack of consistency. I told Claude about Seth Godin’s idea to write a blog post every day – something he’s done for decades and for which he advocates in his book The Practice as a way to practice shipping creative work and ideas to the world. But, because I felt that the posts were too unrelated, rather than being a coherent whole, the blog was purposeless. 

After he responded, I told Claude that maybe this blog is my version of Marcus’s Meditations, written for the same reasons, but done in public.

Claude’s response deserves to be quoted at length:

I find your framing of “my own version of meditations, but in public” particularly compelling. That’s a meaningful distinction from Marcus Aurelius’ private writings. There’s vulnerability and accountability in doing this work publicly that changes its nature, even if no one is reading. The public commitment itself transforms the practice.

Perhaps part of the struggle comes from expecting each post to build on previous ones in a linear way. But collections of thought, like Meditations or even Godin’s blog, create value through accumulation and patterns that emerge over time rather than through a sequential narrative.

What if the “point” isn’t in any individual post but in the practice itself and what it cultivates in you? The consistent act of noticing, reflecting, and articulating might be developing muscles that serve you in ways you don’t immediately recognize.

How does an Artificial Intelligence ask a question like that? I was floored.

Learning Through Writing

After reading and rereading Claude’s previous statements, I mentioned that one of the reasons I started this blog was to express ideas and concepts I was learning in my own words. This is still one of the best ways to learn something (i.e., if you can’t write it down in your own words, you don’t truly understand it). 

Claude’s response:

There’s something powerful about the act of putting concepts “into your own words.” It transforms passive consumption of ideas into active engagement with them. Writing becomes not just a record of what you think, but a tool that helps shape how you think. The blog then becomes a visible record of your intellectual and philosophical development….

Perhaps the “point” of your blog is precisely that clarification process – a space where ideas aren’t just consumed but metabolized and integrated into your worldview. The public nature adds a dimension of accountability and clarity that private journaling might not. 

Then, Claude asked, “What aspects of the writing practice have you found most valuable for clarifying your thinking? And has the public nature of it, even without a large audience, affected how you approach these topics?”

Writing Is Thinking

I’ll quote my response to his question in full:

“Writing something that’s coherent, rather than just notes scribbled in a journal that only I understand. Even if only 300 people subscribe, I still have to put the words down in a way that someone other than me would understand.”

Claude again:

That’s a really valuable insight about the difference between private notes and public writing. Having to communicate in a way that’s understandable to others adds a level of rigor to your thinking that personal journaling might not require…. Even if audience growth isn’t your primary goal, knowing that others are reading creates that accountability to articulate your thoughts coherently.

There’s a concept in educational psychology called “the audience effect” – the idea that knowing someone else will read or hear our thoughts changes how we process and express them. We clarify, elaborate, and structure our thinking differently when we’re communicating with others versus just ourselves.

In many ways, this mirrors the philosophical tradition of dialogue rather than solitary reflection. While Marcus Aurelius wrote privately, philosophers like Plato and Seneca (whom you’ve referenced in your blog) deliberately wrote in forms meant to be shared, recognizing that the act of communicating ideas to others strengthens them.

Now, who wouldn’t be flattered by comparisons to Plato or Seneca? (And no, I’m not nearly so arrogant as to believe I’m anywhere near as wise as them. But I enjoyed the reminder of the philosophical tradition that I was continuing.)

The Purpose of This Blog

The rest of the conversation became rather tactical: 

  • Ways to use this blog as practice
  • Letting it serve as a mental mill, the ideas contained within serving as grist
  • Letting those ideas percolate and come together in other forms, actually intended for a broad audience

I won’t bore you with those details, but I will share this:

After all was said that needed saying, I asked Claude to declare the purpose of this blog in a concise and casual manner. So here it goes:

This blog is Nathan’s thinking gym—a place to stretch those mental muscles by writing in a way other people can actually understand. It’s not really about growing a huge following, but about the daily practice of turning fuzzy thoughts into clear ideas.

Writing for others, regardless of the audience size, forces a level of clarity that scribbling in a journal doesn’t. It’s a sandbox for playing with concepts that matter—and hey, maybe some of those ideas will grow into something bigger down the road. Think of it as thinking out loud, but with purpose.

I couldn’t have said it better myself (nor did I)!

And with that, I think I know what it’s all about once again. See you (whoever wonderful person you are) in the next post.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Make Your Voice Heard in Congress (and Get AI to Help)

Most people care about issues that affect their lives, but too few actually take the next step—contacting their elected representatives. Why? The biggest hurdles tend to be:

  1. Not knowing how to reach them
  2. Not believing it makes a difference
  3. Not knowing what to say

The good news? These are all solvable problems, and AI can help with every single one.

1. Finding Your Representatives

Many people don’t even know where to start. Luckily, it’s easier than ever to look up your representatives:

2. Does It Actually Matter?

Yes. Congressional offices track calls, emails, and letters. When an issue gets a high volume of outreach, it gets attention. Many policies have been shaped—or stopped—because enough people spoke up.

But the real power comes from multiplying your impact. Getting your friends and family involved can turn one letter into dozens. A single person might not change the world, but a network of voices can.

3. Not Sure What to Say? AI Can Help

One of the biggest obstacles people face is writing the message itself. That’s where AI comes in. If you care about an issue but don’t know how to word it, try this:

👉 “Write a letter to my senator about [issue] and why it matters.”

AI can structure your thoughts, keep things professional, and help you make a strong case. A well-written letter increases the chances of being taken seriously.

Start a Letter-Writing Campaign

Want to take it further? Organize a small group—friends, family, coworkers—and encourage them to write letters together. Offer to help them draft messages using AI. Even if only a few people participate, it makes a difference.

Take Action Today

Pick an issue you care about. Find your representatives. Write a letter (or get AI to help you). Then, ask two or three people you know to do the same.

Small actions lead to big changes. The key is getting started.

Stay in the loop. Subscribe today!

by Nathan Coumbe

Writing changes how we speak

I sent my mom a hilarious video the other day. One portion contained tons of Gen Z slang she didn’t understand. 

Now, me being a millennial, I knew what it all meant (even though I don’t use it myself). She asked me to translate, so I did. 

Now, as hysterical as this scenario sounds, it actually brought up a good point. 

Members of Gen Z speak the way they text rather than texting the way they speak (which is what us “old folks” do).

Nearly everything said is a shorthand for something else… because it’s faster to type the slang or shorthand than it is to write out the word or sentence. 

Now, even though my generation had AIM (that’s AOL Instant Messenger for you youngsters), Napster, MySpace, and the like, we never adopted shorthand as a way of speaking in person. I would argue that’s because only a small portion of our communication happened in shorthand using this technology. 

We spent most of our time hanging out in real life, talking on the phone, chatting in class (and being punished for it). In short, most of our communication was through spoken, rather than written, word.

But since Gen Z was the first generation to grow up with the ubiquity of cell phones and social media (rather than having it introduced later in life like it was for Millennials), it’s completely changed the way they communicate. 

A huge majority of their time is spent “writing” in the since that they are using written communication in some form. 

Texting. Messaging. Making Reels and TikToks. Creating snippets of text on SnapChat.

Which brings me back to the original point of this post. 

Language changes as writing changes, so writing changes how we speak. 

It’s a fact of history: our vocabularies expanded exponentially because we started writing things down. And the more we wrote down, the more clarity we were able (and needed) to create about what we were trying to say.

So when you spend all day writing as your main form of communication, the spoken language changes to reflect your writing.

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