Continuing My Writing Practice

Last night, despite it being Friday evening, I didn’t meet anyone for dinner or drinks, and spent my time all by myself. 

After finishing work, I made my way to The Coffee Bean in the Raffles City Shopping Centre, where I continued to read a Japanese book on cognitive biases while drinking a cup of coffee. The book deals with some cognitive biases commonly observed in our daily discourse, such as over-generalization, circular reasoning, and ad hominem attacks. While being very informative, the book is not too difficult to read through, so I’m enjoying it.

I’ve been interested in the subject of critical thinking for many years, but I haven’t gotten around to studying it until now. By reading this book, I hope to get the most basic understanding of how to think in a methodical and organized way, and to avoid being trapped by the most common types of fallacies, such as lies, falsehoods, and fake news.

Having said that, given my very busy life as a working professional, it’s not realistic for me to spend too much time studying the subject. I intend to read only a few very elementary books in this field and be done with it, because there’s a whole bunch of other subjects I want to study, like Japanese history, artificial intelligence, mathematics, and foreign languages.

For me, the most critical subject for me to learn will always be the English language, and in particular to practice writing in English, like I’m doing now. During the last year, I’ve been devoting a great deal of time to this writing practice. My efforts have paid off to some extent, as manifested in my improved fluency in both written and spoken English.

In my view, the ability to speak articulately is really the reflection of your ability to think, making my journal-writing all the more important. I will continue to spend a chunk of my time on this practice until I’m satisfied with my level of fluency.