One thing that’s come out of writing these daily atomic essays is that I often struggle to write something ‘good enough’.

My inner voice will dismiss various possible topics and, even more frequently, various possible sentences.

Which is all well and good—it’s good to have taste. But I can choose to be intentional about when I do and don’t invoke it.

Taste is something I want to be using at the editing stage. It’s suboptimal to be using taste during the initial writing stage.

And during that initial writing stage, it’s not really true that I’m using my taste at all. I didn’t invoke it in that moment. It’s using me. (Which is a big clue that it may not really be taste at all: it’s fear masquerading as taste.)

What can we do about it? It’s simple (but not easy): act. I can practice the meta-skill of doing a thing even when it feels uncomfortable. I can remind myself that the goal here is not to write a good essay! It’s to write an essay. It’s to write any words. I can dig deep into why I feel the need to listen to that voice instead of just act act act act act.