The Reason for All of This
Being sick can be a blessing sometimes - if it is not too serious, it gives you a break in your daily routine and may even ease some stress, let the cognitive load ease enough so that your mind can wonder and you get new ideas.
Writing is not a new idea. Writing to me has been a wonderful thing - I love how some people have the skill of creating worlds and lifetimes of stories with just words. I’m not part of that group. I’m not a professional writer - I was supposed to be writing code when I got sick with a tonsillitis and had to stay inside for three days.
I do need to read and write at work and over the years I have tried having a blog. I use Obsidian to have notes about my work and other important things, and I even try to write a diary.
I lack the regularity. I procrastinate with the diary entries until I forget.
It doesn’t need to be true
That is the new idea I got this time - what I write can be fiction. It doesn’t need to be true. I can write about my life, make my own interpretations, mix in some fiction. Reflect my own story to my parents or grandparents and make conclusions of the world.
It is enough if I can process my thoughts and try to understand why life goes the way it does, and why I feel the way I feel. I want to write things that are unapologetically subjective and only true inside my own self-preserving mind.
They are a reflection of how I structure and form a consistent image of the world that keeps me (in)sane. They are also reflections of the things I have learned during my life.
A story doesn’t need to be a true one to relay what I think of the world. There is something fundamentally free in this. Don’t believe enything you read here.
But I’m pretty sure there will be life behind each text I publish.
Can I have your attention, please
The need to publish texts is intriquing.
I already try to have the habit of writing a diary, so why would I not add this effort in that and keep the texts there? After all, any kind of writing gives you the benefits of writing. Who am I writing for?
I think it is about the feeling of being connected to others. I’m quite introverted, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to be connected to my environment. If the social brain theory is at all accurate, it is obvious why I have a need of opening my thinking to others.
I recently read a book about loneliness and it got me thinking about my own loneliness and the risk of getting detached from other people. I have a tendency to fade to the backgound feeling I don’t have much to offer to people, which is common among those who end up lonely. This is one way of me shouting back at the world.
In addition, I want to practice building pretty digital things, like websites. Having built and published a digital artefact is pleasing at its own.
Digital diaries are lost anchors
My private diary entries will cease to exist once I am not here to access my digital tools. They aren’t a stash of notebooks on an attic covered in dust, waiting for someone to find. This is one thing we will miss dearly of this time - all the lost diaries and photographs.
That is a pity - I have felt that a diary my late mother left behind is some kind of a link to a world she had in her mind. I just wish she would have started writing already before getting terminally ill, I’m sure the world was much more uplifting and exciting then.
Physical books and notebooks are anchors that help us align our thinking (I learned the concept of a book as an anchor from the book Digi-askeesi). The diary of my mother is an anchor that helps me to stay in touch with the person that she was. Maybe more now than when she was alive, as I was only 7 when she passed.
At least people had a chance to see the stories I publish to the Internet.
It doesn’t matter what the content is or if I have anything original to say. What happens inside the person reading the stories is what matters.
It is the same as creativity in teams: psychological safety is important because once you feel safe, you can express all your weirdest ideas to others. The stupidest thing you blurt out can spark a new idea in your team-mate’s head, and that is when the magic happens.