First post! After thinking about it for years now, I finally took the plunge, bought a domain, spent three days learning how to build a static site with Hugo, and am now writing my first post.
What really triggered me to do this was Ali Abdaal’s video on YouTube talking about reasons to start writing online, which really resonated with me. (The title is clickbait-y but the reason is not really to make money).
I’m not a content creator
One of the reasons I procrastinated for so long on this is I didn’t want to be in constant self-afflicted pressure of having to come up with new content. The video helped me shift my mindset towards thinking of writing not as creating content, but as a way of documenting or “showing my work”. It’s merely a space for me to organise my thoughts, as I often write messy notes and incomplete drafts everywhere to document my thoughts so I can always revisit them. I’m also a fan of Amazon’s practice of using narratives to explain your work, as it helps organise your own thought process and find gaps in your reasoning as well. So this is a way of getting better at that. I don’t have to constantly think of new topics, I just have to dump what’s already been on my mind in an organised manner.
This is also why I thought it’s a good idea to write on a personal site instead of a platform like Medium–somehow it feels less about trying to write to gain a following (although it’s definitely nice gain followers) and more about just writing things that are personally more interesting to me.
Inspiring one person with one idea
Every once in a while a small idea comes along that changes everything. (Yes I’m plagiarising a Steve Jobs quote). If I were to reflect upon my life, every now and then, I would casually read or hear about something that–completely unexpectedly–changed the way I live my life. It could be changing a daily habit, or planting a seed of thought that would grow to impact the way I think about many other things in life. I’d imagine that the compounded impact of these small ideas accumulated throughout the rest of my life is IMMENSE. And I think it’s extremely satisfying and proud if I can impact someone positively in that way. So for whatever boring idea I write here that reaches the handful of people who will actually read it, if I can inspire just one person with one idea that changes everything, it’d feel really cool.
Overcoming the fear of uncreativity
I’ve always thought of myself as someone who lacks creativity, especially when it comes to things like art and writing. I can never understand how some people write amazingly well, and I’m envious. But maybe, if I’m just documenting personal thoughts and experiences, I don’t have to be creative. Maybe, writing more somehow makes me write better? Maybe, I have untapped creativity lying somewhere, waiting to be unleashed? Again, that’s why it’s a good idea to write this on a personal site–I can completely fuck this up and no one would notice.
I thought I’d be embarrassed by what I write in the future
But that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’d look back at things I write 4-5 years ago and think to myself, “damn that was actually quite well written for someone as dumb as 5-years-ago-me”. Sure, if I look further back to 10 years ago, there’s some pretty embarrassing shit, but I guess things have stabilised since then.
I’d like my thoughts to persist somewhere
Hitting above 30 years of age and having two kids makes you start thinking about what your legacy will be like, and what you’ll be remembered by if for some reason you leave this world early (or am I the only one thinking this way?). I’m not sure what legacy I’ll build yet, but one thing I can do now is have my thoughts persist somewhere, and immortalised on the internet. If I’m gone for some reason, at least my ideas remain, and those represent a semblance of who I was as a person. And maybe they can still inspire someone (or my kids at least?).
On a less morbid note, it’s also always nice to revisit old thoughts or point someone to a post if we happen to be discussing something relevant.
So that’s pretty much it! Not sure how this whole thing will work out–I’m hoping to at least maintain a level of consistency and habit when it comes to writing, but this is still relatively new to me so we’ll see how it goes, no pressure :)