There’s a dangerous myth that still lingers in how we teach, critique, and canonize writing—particularly essay writing. It’s the idea that language is fixed, finalized, etched in stone. We’re taught in grammar school that the first draft must already point toward the final product. Then, revision is about perfection, not possibility.

But the essay was never meant to be a monument. It’s a practice, a trial run. An essay is a generous, stubborn attempt to pin down what cannot be pinned. Yet, how often are we expected to produce precision from the start—“clean” thoughts, “tight” arguments, a “strong” thesis—before we’ve even wandered around the idea? That’s not writing. That’s posturing.

The truth is, essays are more like experiments than exhibits. To write is to test your language for leaks. The moment you set words to page, you are not recording eternal truths—you are approximating, approaching, assembling. And if you do it right, you leave space for what doesn’t quite make sense yet.

Language is malleable. It breathes, it decays, and it evolves. A phrase that felt sharp in 2012 may feel blunt—or even broken—in 2025. That’s not failure. It’s a matter of verbal ecology. That’s the natural lifecycle of words in public. For example, here’s a line from an essay I once published called, “The Art of the Essay.”

“Despite what common sense may tell you, words are never the solid impressions in stone you may believe them to be.”

That line from an earlier version of myself still feels true. But even now, reading it again, I want to chisel it differently. That’s the gift and curse of writing. It invites endless re-entry. But, if your goal is to write something that never needs to be revisited… you might be aiming for a tombstone.

Let’s stop teaching essays as if they’re destinations. We must start treating them like conversations, like thoughtforms made visible—temporary, meaningful, and always a little bit vulnerable.

The art of the essay isn’t about getting it right. It’s about being honest enough to get it in motion. Because words are not stone—they are smoke, thread, rhythm. A writer is not a stonemason, but rather a sort of scientist, and each essay is very much a product of trial and error over everything a scribe has ever scribed.