A Blurry Mirror

It's not possible to capture in any kind of nuance or detail what you think about even a single subject. Even when writing an entire book about a subject, there could be more to say - and there would still be so much left to interpretation.

No combination or sequence of words captures a thought state. Part of this goes beyond thoughts are subtle - thoughts aren't really in language. Thoughts are thoughts, and language is really just a surface detail that sits on top of that thought where you can easily see it. There are certain kinds of things that I think about - like when I'm working on a software problem - that I don't think about using any language until it's actually necessary. Turning that kind of thinking into a programming language I'm familiar with is relatively straight forward - I've got lots of practice at that. Turning it into English is still relatively difficult - though a lot less difficult than it was when I first started being a software developer!

Of course, just because capturing what we're thinking is difficult isn't to say we shouldn't try. Trying to capture it pins it down a little, makes it a little less blurry - even feeds back and starts to change what we're thinking based on our attempts. Writing, especially, is good for this. Because writing is inherently stateful, we can capture some view of our thoughts, allow any subsequent thoughts to happen, and then refine what we've captured based on that feedback loop.

We can see that the quality of capturing our thoughts can be better or worse, it can improve over time - it can certainly be useful - it just can't be perfect. And it's going to be hard to make it good. It might be best to make the capturing of your thoughts about the process, rather than about the outcome. That way, you get the use of it, you improve over time with the feedback, and you don't worry that it can't be perfect. Remember, by building a system that focuses on quantity you pave the way for quality.