I am still knowing the known

In the past twenty years, the kind of things I have written are not what I once thought I would write. I used to write technical pieces connected with my profession.

Then, I began to write about the things I already knew, calling it knowing the known. This practice became a habit. I no longer waited for a topic to arrive; whatever came to mind, I wrote. There was no symmetry, no sequence. Slowly, I overcame my hesitation about how to begin or how to end.

Later, I started writing columns for a newspaper; again, on whatever came to me, never prompted by the editor. Then came editorials for my Academy’s newsletter, as its chief editor. Here I wrote about the relevance of art in science. I edited books about the mind of engineers.

And then I wrote what I had never written before — poetry — without understanding its grammar or structure.

At last came storytelling, drawn largely from my own experiences.

I am still knowing the known.