freewriting → introduction
All texts in this series were written by me on paper, in complete isolation and without access to any technology (except for a desk lamp and a ballpoint pen). The idea behind this method is to explore and embrace the imperfections of my writing and thought processes. As a non-native speaker, I have been using the internet to aid my writing in English for as long as I can remember — looking up spellings, idioms and expressions, trying to bring my texts to the standards of whatever platform I was writing for. Now in 2025, of course, it is a commonplace ritual for almost anyone who writes* to run their drafts through an LLM and have a ‘corrected’ version in a matter of seconds, often more coherent and readable in the conventional sense. I find, however, the conventional sense failing me more often than I would like to admit, and many of the texts that had an impact on me were utterly unreadable at first and/or lacked any sort of conventional structure. I also find that technology-aided writing, while in some ways increasing efficiency and allowing for hands-on research, noticeably hinders my ability to stay on the same train of thought for a long time and articulate complex ideas on my own. I have not tried this method before and cannot say much about the output quality, but given the nature of my thesis topic I find it appropriate (if not necessary) to write at least part of it this way.
[251 words, ±45 min]