Why I'm Writing
I've been thinking about how to move from being a thinker to a doer (Yes, I see the irony in that). I've always been a thinker, but I'm now finding this limiting, which is why I want to try doing more things, including writing this blog. I've never tried blogging for what it is. I've tried Tumblr, I've published posts on WordPress, but personal blogging is such a foreign concept to me as a writer.
This could be just what I've needed to do or it could end up being another abandoned project, but in the spirit of trying, I'm doing it instead of it just being another thing to think about. At least by starting something, I am putting something out in the world, and it just might help someone.
I've always been so resistant to put out something like this, because I hate noise. I despise anything that makes you feel like you've wasted the time spent on it. There's so much noise in the internet now and so much of it that doesn't add to your life. Sometimes, some of it can even feel productive, but it's like a bullshit job where it's there for the sake of being there. You look busy, and you're doing things, but what are you doing really?
It's one of the things that drove me away from writing online professionally. The blogs I was paid to write, even when I tried to make them as informative as possible and not just repeat the same five things every other article on the topic had and have some original writing put together with research from multiple sources, those would eventually turn into requests for more and more irrelevance and noise. There was only so much to be said about a particular topic that the company wanted to talk about, and after that, it was all just text for the sake of ranking in results to get more organic traffic. That was the primary goal for the company paying. The other primary goal was to keep writing so they would keep paying. Not actually helping people, not providing useful information, but just making the numbers go up. If it happened to have useful information, that was fine, but that was not the purpose.
So I stopped wanting to write at all, especially longform content that would be just out there on the internet, for everyone. Sure, I was still making notes for myself and writing for my own sake, but if I did think of writing a blog, or a newsletter, the first thing I would ask was: does this help anyone? Or is this just more noise in a world already so full of bullshit competing for your attention every waking hour and all those hours you should be sleeping but don't because there's more bullshit to look at? Would you be better for having spent your time reading this?
I think I have good ideas, and my own unique perspective, and so many things I want to talk about that someone can find helpful. About writing, about life, about concepts that I come across. But I'm biased. I'm not an objective third party. Is this actually something that can be meaningful or is it just more noise?
You'll have to tell me. But I won't know if I don't try, and I'm trying this out. It's only once I share something that it can become something to be experienced. I can think all I want about whether or not it'll be a complete waste, but if even a single person finds any of my writing helpful in any way at all, I think it'll be worth it.