Starting something new
As someone who thinks of themself as a surface-level generalist, I’ve always wanted to have a place where I can compile all my passing thoughts, interests, and learnings in one place. My interest changes so fast that sometimes I can’t keep up, and with my almost-Dory-like memory, things and thoughts that go over my head sometimes end up getting lost and forgotten, which is a very unfortunate thing.
Not to mention that I always draw a blank whenever someone comes up to me and asks, “What are the things you’re interested in? What do you do for fun?” Trust me, it’s not a good feeling. Suddenly you’re the most uninteresting person in the room while you fumble over your answer.
But more than that, I've also previously read that writing is a good way of thinking and processing one's thoughts, and so I'd like to have a place to do that without having to worry about perfection. I don't know about others, but to me, starting something from scratch has always intimidated me in one way or another, in worry that I won't have a good start, I won't be able to continue or be consistent, I won't be able to show the side of myself that I feel is worth showing. Which sounds stupid, because who starts something and immediately gets good at it?
And so here I am. I stumbled upon this platform by chance and it looks somewhat less intimidating. It feels like I can just jot things down, hit Publish, and not worry about it later on. I'd also like to use this platform as a way to practice not to pore over what I've written after I hit Publish, and just let it be out there. I don't expect anyone to read these posts either anyway.
I plan to write and post about a number of different things, but mostly:
- Brief thoughts on things that I happen to consume at a given time
- Interesting things I stumble upon (and might or might not add to the list of things I want to look into later and then forget)
- Mini insights that I find along the way
- My language learning journey
- among other things, I guess.
Although this site will have an audience of zero, more or less, I'm excited to see how things progress. I can't promise myself that I'll be consistent in writing here, and while everyone says that consistency is key, I prefer this notion I recently read better: "Continuation over consistency."
Lastly, for this first post, I'd like to share a video that I recently watched, which parts of it resonated with me:
why you should create like a kid again
[Those old journals] were messy and unfinished, but that’s exactly what makes them perfect. Having such a raw and tangible version of an experience is the closest anyone could get to reliving a memory.
(This was originally published on October 2024 when I stumbled upon write.as, but I kind of forgot about it altogether. Discovering bear blog reminded me of it, though, and I kind of like this platform better, so I'm porting it here instead.)