Here’s how I think about writing in public: you have to weigh the importance of feeling safe with the importance of being known. My therapist once described writing as a way for me to gain control over how I am seen (insert joke about the “being perceived” meme). I agree with that: instead of relying on someone else to narrativize my life or offer an observation about me, I use writing as a way to assert my own narrative. It’s how I remain more subject than object, how I maintain conviction in my own agency. Writing in public is a way to get constant feedback—to prove to myself that what I’m writing is worth something to someone.