The Ghost and the Witch

Warning: This title is misleading!

Throughout my teenage, a ghost that I could never see or touch haunted me. It was shapeless as real ghosts usually are. Did you know that they don’t have shadows either, contrary to the belief that they are bodiless shadows? It seemed that this ghost had silently chartered my spacious mind, but then it fled soon after I bumped into a witch, who eventually rid me of this ghost.

I want to share with you how the witch rid me of the ghost that occupied my mind for so long. Goes without saying, I’ll introduce you to both, the ghost and the witch.

The ghost was disorderliness of my thoughts; my inability to think in correct order that can simplify complex situations; to perceive various pieces of a situation that can be attended to in a certain order, one by one. The ghost was the condition of my mind that always complicated things. So I would name this ghost unstructured thinking! Why I think that unstructured thinking is a ghost, because I believe that ghosts are none other than the negativities or limitations of our own mind. We create ghosts and therefore only we have the power to destroy them. The witch is the line of my career that I chose accidentally, which changed my thinking model completely. The witch is technical writing. Needless to say, only a witch can restrain ghosts.

When I wrote my first document, the witch cajoled me to gaze into her crystal ball and review the big picture. Her crystal ball revealed a simple truth that my entire life is a document, and I have the freedom to design and create it the way I want.

“How are thoughts and thinking different?”- the witch asked. Thoughts, she said, are ideas that we acquire from others. “Like writers plagiarize content.”- she laughed. Those are thoughts, not thinking, she added. Thinking is when you question everything not for the sake of questioning, but for better understanding a situation or a challenge. You will question only when you try to go deeper into things and ideas. Blindly adopting ideas and beliefs is quite like copying and pasting content from someone else’s document. Whether in documentation lifecycle or in real life, adaptation of an idea or strategy without in-depth analysis adds little value.

The crystal ball drew a parallel between the tasks that I perform as a technical writer and situations in my real life. It showed me that researching into product, domain, and technology that I write about is quite similar to identifying the purpose of my life. It made me realize how all my life I kept postponing this task assuming that the purpose will be revealed on its own accord. Perhaps I thought it was not important enough, just as an inexperienced writer I didn’t realize how important is thorough research. My first reaction to the idea of research was that I would learn about the subject matter while writing the document through trial and error. However, the realization of its importance saved me from a documentation fiasco. Similarly, shunning the task of finding out the purpose of my existence could lead to an inconsequential life.

I was told to always keep in mind the audience, what it already knows, what it expects to learn from the document, and what it wishes to achieve through the documented instructions. The witch drew an analogy between audience analysis and self-observation. It coerced me to keep in mind my strong desires, natural talents, and inclinations to achieve what I want. The witch emphasized, “The “self” is the audience in real life.”

The witch then asked me to find similarities between documentation users and we the living. I was dumbfounded! I began to mumble; the ghost was playing tricks again. The witch then tapped my third eye between the eyebrows and wisdom began to flow. I knew it!
In the world of computer programs, users learn by doing, in the real world the law of karma teaches us the lessons of life.


Like users learn by thinking and reasoning, we learn by observing each thought that crosses our mind and each action that we perform in daily life.

Like users are prone to performing actions without thinking carefully, we jump to conclusions in life.

Like they avoid planning, we rarely think how we can fulfill our most cherished dreams.

Like users detest detailed instructions, we abhor self-analysis.

Like users subconsciously apply previous learning they acquired from similar tasks, we are conditioned to behave and act in ways defined by society and people that surround us.

Like users have difficulties comprehending and fixing errors they encounter, we have problems finding the root cause of most psychological problems.

Like users use error analysis and troubleshooting information to explore their knowledge, we look into our past to see how we dealt with similar situations.

Like there is a learning strategy for each problem that users encounter, there is learning in each situation that we face in real life.

Just when I was overwhelmed with what I saw in the crystal ball, the witch drew a parallel between the role of content outline and objectives in documentation and that of listing down dreams and creating affirmations in real life. The witch said, like creating a content outline helps you focus on the crucial topics and the order in which they should be developed, listing down your dreams keeps you focused. Like writing objectives for topics enables you to cover useful and appropriate content, creating affirmations empowers you to fulfill your dreams. The witch concluded this point by saying: “If content outline serves the purpose of documentation map, affirmations become the gateway to a fulfilling life.”

The witch explained, just as minimalism ensures only that information is delivered to users, which they need to achieve their goals—nothing less nothing more, the state of silence or meditation sweeps the clutter of the mind, and from that clean slate unfurls suppressed creativity. She then drew a comparison between using only positive phrases that is, using no negatives, in documentation and always thinking positive in real life. Never say there is a bug in particular functionality, but specify the alternative (a workaround) to achieve the expected results. Likewise, never think in life that you cannot do it! Focus on how you can do what you want to.

She asked me to recall how my first troubleshooting document had helped an agitated user resolve a serious problem. “Picture him struggling with that problem in absence of the troubleshooting document.” she said. She admonished me for not using my inner strength to find right and simple solutions to problems that bother me in routine life.

“You create risk mitigation plans for your documents. However, sometimes the risk mitigation plan fails due to unidentified risks. You complain about it, but you gear up to meet the new challenges, because you know that anything less than success won’t do. So you find ways to accomplish your goals. You mitigate risks in your personal life, too. Saving a certain percentage of your salary every month is one example. But when an unknown risk quakes your life, you rarely say to yourself, “I can handle this, or this is part of life, and this too shall pass if I remain patient and face it with courage and faith.” She drew another parallel. She rotated her crystal ball and this message flashed: “If challenging documentation work gives you mental stimulation, challenging situations in life help you internalize the truth that most people just talk about.”

Before dematerializing, the witch gave me a talisman that still scares the ghost that once ruled my mind. The talisman has this message: “You will achieve the purpose of your life when you have identified who you are and what you are here for. You will be a thinker in the true sense when you follow your inner guide that shows you the path best for you; prepares you to walk on that path, and bestows the ability to meet challenges that you will face on your journey toward a fulfilling life.”

The arrival of this witch in my life is not a coincidence, because it’s the universe’s conspiracy to defeat the ghost. It’s a significant synchronicity in my life.