On writing. Reading is optional.

Overcoming resistance to writing to save students from my opinions.

The subtitle to Pressfield’s book for writers called “Do the Work!” (a follow up to “The War of Art”) resonates with me.

“Overcome Resistance and get out of your own way.”

Resistance is anything that stops me from writing. In “The War of Art” Pressfield defines many forms of resistance and in Do the Work he further describes and addresses how to deal with them. But since resistance to writing is a personal thing, and at least partly unique to each writer, I must reflect on my own particular instantiations of resistance. The most pervasive forms of resistance are developed internally. Yes we contrive external realities to justify our internal resistance, but they are just that - contrived. True externalities occur, though less often than the resistance from within. Much of my resistance consists of narratives I weave as a comforter to cover my fear of writing thoughts and adding to the noise of opinion under which society bears witness. There’s the constant fear of facing the possibility that what I’ve spent time working on is vacuous, uninteresting and generally irrelevant. Not wanting to add to the noise of opinions is just one excuse I’ve crafted to hide from my real worry. Irrelevance.

Photo by ALEXANDRE DINAUT on Unsplash

Ironically, overtime I can trace an association between writing my thoughts and sharing them in the classroom. They are inverse. If I’m writing my thoughts down for an audience that may or may not exist, people that have the choice to consume or not consume, then I tend to save students from being forced to listen to them. Are there topics that I consider highly relevant for a course such as anatomy that students may not initially see the relevance of? Yes. Not everyone immediately understands the relevance of common sense or critical realism epistemology. But in your pursuit of anatomical knowledge, you use non contradiction, causation, analogical use of language, a basic reliability of sensory perception, the stratification of reality and the fact that ontology determines epistemology while epistemology sets the standards of knowing ontology in the first place. I don’t consider those topics my opinion or irrelevant to learning anything - even anatomy. So they must be discussed.

By opinions in the classroom I refer to such things as whether health care should or should not be for profit;¹ whether professionals should or should not own their profession by owning their practice; the nature of reality beyond our immediate sensory perceptual apparatus; whether technological advances are good or bad; whether on a two lane highway the left lane is a passing lane, or a travel lane (so that the right lane is an enter/exit lane. If you’ve had my classes you know that discussion is on topic, on topic but expansive in breadth and depth, off topic but related in expressive and possibly important ways, or off topic as an opinion. It’s from opinions from which I must save my classroom.

I need to resume writing, and I need to write daily. If for no other reason than to save the students in my class. Save them from me and my opinions that are not a necessary component to what they need to learn in my courses. To start writing, I must face resistance.

My resistance narratives include some unnecessary details for the purpose of this post. Just writing about the need to write is helping me with this step back into writing. With time I’ll learn whether the inertia of not writing can be replaced by the inertia of writing. I would like to start writing because it’s an extension of my thinking. Whether this is of any value or benefit to others is something I struggle with - that’s a resistance. To overcome this resistance I’m going to be completely honest and let you know that I’ve started to write for myself. I’m not writing this for you. I have to write for me because of my resistance. It sounds strange to say that I am my audience. But that’s the only way to get started.

If you’re bent like me you may find value in what I’m offering. If that’s the case, I’m thrilled. It’s the reason I’d like to write, to offer value to a reader. I just don’t have the confidence to actually write for that reason. If I write for you then I’ll stop because I really don’t know whether I have anything to write that will be of any value for you. And that is a major form of resistance for me. And that resistance is a crisis of relevance. Over the past 30 years as a physical therapist, 20 of them spent studying philosophy (particularly epistemology), I can say that the more you learn about knowledge the more you question it. It’s a paradox. When I was pursuing my Masters degree a personal training client who happened to be a lawyer (Juris Doctorate) shared with me a saying he had learned: When you earn your Bachelor’s degree you believe you know everything, your Master’s degree you realize you don’t know anything; and your Doctorate degree you realize it doesn’t matter because no one else does either. That’s a bit cynical, but it’s always stuck with me. The more we learn, the more we realize the finiteness and limitations of our understanding.

When I’m teaching a class I vacillate between topics that I hope have lasting value to those that have immediate practical value. And as a professor I can create that context. That’s the power of being the person writing the exam. I create or emphasize immediate practical value by saying the words: “This will be on the exam.” Or, in PT education saying “This is something you need to know for the national licensure exam, or for your clinical rotation.” In many ways those phrases are life preservers in the day to day life as a professor that struggles to provide lessons of life long or eternal value along with practical value. After all, who am I to even suppose I could provide such lessons? Why should a student have to endure my opinions? And if the student shouldn’t have to endure them, then why am I even writing about them? This resistance is a muddy swamp with overgrown thistles and branches slowing me down from above and below. Perhaps the student shouldn’t be subjected to them at all. At least the reader of this substack can stop at anytime. The student is stuck. Why put them into that situation? One reason is the satisfaction of search or confirmation bias of a few students, on occasion, telling me that they learned a lot in my course about more than the course and that they appreciated it. Are those real? Do they represent the majority view? Or are they just a few outlier opinions that feed my hopes (and ego)? And before you - my dear and cherished reader - consider that question, please recall the meaning of selection bias.

Based on my observations about the amount of noise in the world - noise of opinions swarming around and impossible to keep up with - I have tended to withdraw these past few years into a protective shell. If there is too much noise, why should I add to it with my opinions? Either in teaching or writing? This thought harasses me. It creeps in from all angles. It haunts me. I’m not great at keeping to myself, but I’m working on it.

What then? I can’t teach for myself. By definition teaching requires students. And, unlike writing which I can walk away from whenever I desire, teaching is something I do to earn my living. I can’t walk away from teaching. Even in a clinic, I’m teaching clients. No option there. For teaching I must work to give students what they need and minimize the amount of that which comes from my opinion and maximize the amount which comes from necessity. Plant seeds, and talk with those that seek other opportunities about topics beyond the classroom - beyond the objectives of the class. A habit I’m working on for that purpose is a regular review of the objectives of the class I’m teaching.

But this post isn’t about resistance to teaching. It’s a post about resistance to writing. The reason my mind goes to teaching is that by not writing, I believe I have more temptation to turn my teaching into preaching about whatever topics are on my mind. And that is not fair to students. I’m hopeful that by dealing with my resistance to writing, I’ll be able to focus my teaching on the objectives of the course.

What then for writing? Write for myself. If others find it, and find it of value, they read it. Does it contribute to noise. Sure. There’s no way to write anything these days without having it add to the noise. Is what I write novel or new - not likely. There’s nothing new under the sun.² But the beauty of having my thoughts and ideas fill the “pages” of a substack post is that they are optional. Only people that want to read it will read it.

Therefore, I am writing as an outlet for myself. Instead of sharing them from the classroom lectern in front of a group of people that don’t have a choice. The resistance that once blocked my writing has now been flipped. There is no excuse. I must write to save my students from my pontifications.

1. Of course, if I’m teaching a course on health systems or health economics then this topic is part of the discussion. And data can be used to navigate the reality of these forms of health care and thus the discussion. In other words, what is an “opinion” in a class vs. content for the course depends on the course itself, and also the supportive evidence, or justifications provided, for the opinions.

2. Ecclesiastes 2:11 (ESV) “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after the wind, and there nothing to be gained under the sun.”