Writing is a different form of thinking, a slower, more visible form. Why then does it seems so unreasonable to write without readers? We don't question whether it's a good idea to keep thinking despite nobody hearing our thoughts right?
Here's a few reasons why its worth writing, assuming nobody will ever read it.
Think clearly
While thinking, you make mistakes and go through stupid thought patterns, but you don't notice them, because they're hard to spot. In writing, however, they are hard to miss.
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee - his hands can't hit what his eyes can't see
- Muhammad Ali
Ali had it right, and not only about boxing. You can't start fixing your bad thought patterns if you can't see them, so write them down to expose them.
As soon as you find where your thoughts are becoming unclear, hard to follow or just not making sense, then you can start reworking your thought process until you stop making these mistakes
Solve hard problems
Writing doesn't only make your thinking clearer, it also gives you the ability to tackle harder problems. Putting your thought process down on paper enables you to solve problems you couldn't without writing.
Writing allows you to pause and focus on details because you're not concerned with keeping the entire thought process in short term memory
Learn
Writing is similar to explaining, it makes you give up your subconscious understanding and forces you to organize and summarize your thoughts externally.
Organizing your thoughts externally exposes knowledge gaps, logical errors and areas where you can simplify concepts and solidify your understanding.
Exposing these gaps allow you to reinforce them with more knowledge and to solidify your understanding
Now you may think you already have perfect knowledge but there's a chance you're overestimating yourself. You know what a bike looks like right? Try drawing one. Here's some examples of people trying.
Get better at writing
There's plenty more benefits to writing than the ones i already mentioned. Becoming happier , de-cluttering your mind or treating depression, to name a few, but let's not forget the skill of writing itself.
Being able to communicate clearly through text is valuable in most jobs, and the way to get better at is to practice, so write to get better at writing.
Fix your information diet
Most of us spend the majority of our time passively consuming content, never producing anything. Not being in charge of what we're taking in, consuming whatever is being served by algorithms and feeds.
Switching to production mode will balance the ratio of production and consumption. Producing content will make you more actively gather information, deciding what you want to consume and finding that content, not consuming whatever is being served on the front page or "For You" pages.
By producing content you'll be learning what you actually want to learn, and you'll be learning it well because you're producing content about it.
Big wins!
Why Publish?
It may sound counterintuitive, but the reason for publishing is not getting people to read. You should publish because it pushes you to produce better content and allows pieces to be completed.
There's always a risk somebody might eventually read it if you publish it, and knowing this will make you do more quality control than you would saving a text file.
You don't want someone to accidentally find dog shit quality content that you've been producing. It's not unlikely that down the line, revisiting your old content it will look like dog shit to you. Trust me, it would've been even worse if you didn't publish it.
Publishing also marks a piece complete, no more editing, no more going back and fourth to improve it. It is done. That's good, even if the piece is bad. You don't want to get stuck editing the same piece over and over again, never being able to move on. Publishing saves you from this.
Even if you decide not to publish, atleast write.