An Introduction?
I feel like this post is obligatory for any new blog. I’ve had a desire to write/share my “knowledge” in some capacity since I was pretty young. I remember honing my video editing skills through summer camps and youtube videos so that once I had an idea worth making a video about, I could. But somehow, no magic idea ever came to me. I always thought: What’s the benefit of simply regurgitating knowledge that’s already out there? Why are any of my ideas unique?
With COVID, I picked up a semi-consistent habit of journaling. I’m most consistent when I am going through some type of stress (academic, emotional, physical). On other days, I would barely fill a page, mostly with random thoughts and to-do list items. Every so often, though, something really clicks inside me and I end up writing a couple of pages in order to look critically and rationally at whatever is on my mind at that moment. But why does the act of journaling feel more essential than starting a blog? At the end of the day, journaling is simply rewriting down your thoughts. Why do I (and others) find journaling so useful?
I feel that the very act of journaling forces me to think deeper about everything. I don’t know how it took me ~2 years to realize, but there seems to be no structural difference between journaling and blogging except for the audience. Whilst the confines of my little blue Moleskin are private, this blog is public. I wondered then if the only thing stopping me was a fear of being public.
Why am I writing this blog?
To share ideas, mistakes, lessons, etc.
The top fringes of humanity contribute to society through papers, books, music, movies, and other forms of knowledge disseminators. But, for the vast majority of humanity, our attempts at impacting others through sharing our experiences are limited to our close family and friends. In an attempt to expand that circle of influence (eek, I strongly dislike that word), I’m writing this blog! Hopefully my ideas will be found useful by someone out there. In the worst case, where no one reads this, it will still help me to become a better writer (after all, to become a better writer, one must write regularly).
To extend my personal library
For a couple of years, my dad has been maintaining a personal project he called his “lessons learned.” It is a collection of decades worth of lessons he has learned written on topics from managing a business to planning weddings. Inspired by this, I decided to create a personal library of my own right around my junior year of high school. I’ve collected hundreds of different lessons I’ve learned from my own mistakes and ideas I found valuable. However, a lot of these “entries” into my library remain short bullet points and I would prefer them to be fleshed out. So, this blog serves that purpose as well - a way to force me to really think about each of these ideas more profoundly and write about them in a way that shares my ideas, opinions, and observations with others. To even hopefully find new ways that all of these ideas relate to each other.
To challenge my own ideas
I arrive at my statements through an iterative process that is probably going to be very, very different from you. My path to any idea is based on certain assumptions, and by forcing myself to write about that path, I get an opportunity to examine each of those assumptions critically. When you think about the same set of events, your separate path might reveal to you an entirely different conclusion. I’d love for you to share with me your discoveries and even highlight where and why I might have made a flawed conclusion. Point out why my logic or analysis doesn’t make sense. After all, most mistakes that we make are repeated. We had made them earlier too. At the very least someone else had made them before us. So if another person who has already made that mistake could share their learnings, perhaps it might allow us to have an insight into something we might not have considered otherwise. And who knows, it may just help us prevent making that same mistake. It isn’t about failing or learning from failures. It is about shared learnings from shared failures.
Why am I not writing this blog?
I don’t want this to become just another thing that demands your attention. That draws readers for the sake of drawing ‘traffic’ on the internet. And the ad revenue that comes with it. Or the speaking opportunities that make you into a domain expert and a much sought after “speaker.” Nor do I want it to be something that demands my constant attention.
In high school, I realized that the more I tried to “monetize” my hobbies in terms of the college application process, the less I enjoyed those hobbies. I will gladly sacrifice consistency and perfection in an attempt to preserve this as a “pure hobby.”
The more I’ve thought about my plan-less approach, the more I’ve questioned whether this will be something “worth” my time (or even be successful). But that depends on how we define success. For me, every single post is a large improvement from the alternative. Any time spent writing is a success.
What am I going to write about?
Whatever I find interesting. Stories I want to share. Content I found impactful and worthy of a share. Lessons I’ve learnt that might be useful to someone.
Thanks to Sandeep Jain and Laura Hwa for feedback