Writing on the internet is humbling.

There is no shorter path to figuring out whether your opinion is valid or not anywhere else in life. It’s true.

Those occupying the dinner table at home may be biased (and uneducated). The places where politicians convene may be cesspools where absolutely nothing said actually matters.

Social media can be a shitshow, too, where your friends probably share the same beliefs as you anyway so there’s nobody there to check you at all.

The people who actually take the time to respond to articles, however, probably know what the hell they’re talking about. They probably read everything you wrote.

Writing Allows For Your Full Argument To Shine

Articles are different from dinner tables and 140-character tweets.

You can make your argument without any arguments. There’s nobody coming in and deleting the rest of what you’re about to say because they want a chance to talk. It’s you and a white page, and it’s there — all of it — so those reading have to deal with it.

I love that.

But it’s also quite scary. When somebody “beats you” in a real-life argument it might not be because they had a better point of view, it may be because they can yell louder or jumped in when you had a small lapse in your explanation.

When you’re writing on the internet you have the time to fact-check. You have the time to build something up on both the argument side and the rhetoric side (so it sounds hella good).

You can captivate people with dashes and short sentences and even run-on sentences to prove that there’s so much you have to say.

See what I did there?

But there’s a flip side to that.

Your Point Of View Is Here For Everybody To See

That’s scary.

It’s real scary.

At least at the dinner table you can find solace in the fact that Uncle Chris just yelled louder than you and didn’t hear all you had to say.

But on the internet that doesn’t fly.

You gotta bring your A-game. If you don’t, people will walk all over you. And here’s where it gets extra crappy..

Even when you do bring your A-game, you can get lit up like the Fourth of July.

That’s because people are smarter than you on the internet. This isn’t the dinner table anymore. This isn’t even a classroom full of 50–60 people YOUR AGE. This is the internet.

Where Elon Musk can reply to you on X. Where experts circle in the water constantly searching for the first signs of blood.

It is freaking terrifying.

At the end of the day, all we have are our thoughts and beliefs about the world. What happens when they’re destroyed in front of our very eyes?

What happens when our whole foundation crumbles underneath of us?

Some comments on the internet have buried me for days.

It’s tough.

It’s different from getting beaten in sports. I know because I’ve done both.

But here’s the silver lining.

You’ll Grow Unlike 99% Of People Can

Who consistently puts their thoughts out there for the world to see every day?

Writers.

Who else?

Not many people.

They put their views out there in front of friends and family members who largely agree with them.

There is no growth. There are no competing opinions.

If you write about your views on the internet, you will get corrected at some point. It’s just facts.

Some people will be really mean about it.

It might shake your foundation a little too much.

But through this tough time you’ll be growing. You’ll be growing faster than 99% of people on this planet, I’m convinced.

It’s good to grow. It’s good to get lit up. I find that when I welcome debate in my articles I receive much better feedback that’s not nearly as mean or harmful.

That’s why I believe writing is the most humbling thing you can ever do.

You are intellectually naked in front of thousands (or millions) of people. You got your say, and now it’s time for others to get theres.

It’s scary, but in the end it’s the best thing you could ever do.