Personal – Page 15 – untitled atm

027 – find the why of whatever you’re doing

The other day I was talking about goals with a couple of friends. I mentioned how I’ve started this project where I’m hoping to write a 100,000 words. Both of them reacted with surprise about how that sounds like a lot. And I explained a bit about how it’s just 100 posts that’s a 1000 words long, and then I immediately shifted to how “it’s probably a wish, not a goal”. I’m wondering whether there’s something worth examining here. I know that in the past I’ve had problems with being ambitious in public, and I generally prefer to err on the side of underselling myself. I know where all that comes from, but I wonder if it’s worth continuing. Did I need to change the terminology of this project from a goal to a wish? Did it have any consequences?

I’ve been writing less since the last couple of weeks and part of me thinks this might have affected my motivation. Though I think most probably there’s other factors that might have affected it and this might be *completely* unrelated.. I still feel like it might have had at least like a 10% role to play. Almost like not-owning up to the goal in that moment made me subconsciously relax from it.

I stumbled across a post of Visa’s where he examines his reasons for doing this, and it made me realize it’s worth doing that from time to time. It’s like when you’re questioning your love for something you try to remember why you started, and why (if at all) you want to keep going.

Earlier (way back in my first post), I’d listed these few reasons for wanting to do this:

To “fight off” vulnerability
Developing as a “writer”
Developing as a person / growth
Potentially meet people + have more / more interesting conversations

I think I’ve successfully handled vulnerability now (this is huge for me, btw)! I don’t feel this urge to backspace words or delete posts, I rarely feel hesitancy before publishing. I think I still feel some hesitancy while sharing specific posts with individual people (especially people I know IRL), but overall, in terms of publishing on the blog itself, I’m in a good place.

I’m pretty sure I’ve developed as a writer too. I scoff less every time I use the term. I’m okay with calling myself an “aspiring writer” and letting it exist on the home-page of this blog as well. I’ve become much better at talking about this in real life conversations as well. I’ve already talked about this in some of my previous posts, but words flow easier now too. I don’t second-guess my sentences much, unless I’m trying to do creative-writing. Which brings me to another gain. I didn’t think I would actually end up writing creatively at all when I’d started this – but I’ve found that I’m able to (even if not too much), and I’ve also found it to be quite satisfying and inspiring.

Definitely developed as a person. My weeks are better when I’m writing enough, it’s showing up in my mood and my therapy sessions too. I feel like I’m able to process difficult things without always having to wait for my appointments. Realized that I can feel empty, if I want to. I don’t always have to feel overwhelmed with thoughts. Realizing that I don’t always need to share thoughts and feelings with people, pretty much writing about them is good enough as well. Since I was testing whether there’re limits to introspection, I think I might have found my answer for that as well. (It’s most likely a yes, as discussed here.)

I haven’t had a lot of the last one, but I haven’t felt the need for it either. I did initially try to share some of posts with specific people to initiate conversations about certain topics, but turns out it didn’t go the way I wanted. I think once you’re sort of done with writing about something, it’s hard to care about it again. This is weird and I’m not sure if that should be the case, honestly.

And then one other unintended gain I’ve gotten is that I’ve gotten quite decent at titles. Earlier the titles would end up being very straightforward summarizers (which is fine too), but I think I’ve gotten much better at making them a bit more catchy.

Looks like I’ve met most of what I wanted to achieve from this, so it makes sense my motivation might not be as high as it was when I’d started. Time to redefine goals and OKRs then?

Creative writing – Do more creative writing (not sure what this will look like but I must investigate)
Research – Delve into the dark cloud of research – why I don’t like it, why it’s scary, what does a well-researched piece of writing look like, what’s the line between being inspired by existing work and “generating” new work almost entirely by existing work?
Sharing – Think about sharing work – why I should do it – how I can do it better?

I think I should be able to come up with some more goals (these don’t seem enough) but it’s funny how this looks like a classic case of “I want to do something, so I’ll find reasons to do it”. I wonder if we often function like that? How many “needs” in the world are “created” needs?

Okay I think I’ll wrap this up with a third unintended gain I’ve had. I realized I’m definitely able to enjoy this (writing) purely by itself too, not just when I’m using it as an escape. Quite happy about that, nothing else to say here!

026a – have you tried turning it off and on again?

How do I explain anxiety to someone who’s never experienced it? How do I explain what it feels like to constantly be on edge, like I persistently have a reverse countdown or the reverse alphabet running in my head in the background? How do I explain why I’m not able to fall asleep even after 36 hours of being awake? And even if I’m able to explain it, does it achieve the purpose? What am I trying to achieve by making other people understand? What am I looking for? Sympathy, empathy, compassion? I get that regularly from most of my friends and family. I get a decent amount of it. Why do I have this need to for my anxiety to be “properly” understood?

I might need to look for a support group. I’ve had this on my list for ages but this is the first time I’ve written it out as a task to primarily focus on a few weeks down the line.

I was fully occupied this week with house-hunt and messed up sleep, so processing my feelings / writing took a huge hit, and I find myself suffering because of it. Definitely consumed a lot of media and I think that wasn’t great.

Already feeling a little better, thank you, me.

I need to be careful about how I spend my time because the moment my routine and sleep and food suffers, things start getting tough very quickly. I don’t think I’m able to judge my social needs very well. I end up spending time texting with people quite often in the day but I’m not sure if I need to or whether it’s actually doing me any good or just ending up being a zero value time-sink.

The anxiety medication (it’s been 5 weeks since I started it) has been helping a lot but the last two days have been high anxiety days. I missed a couple doses too which got me worried about whether that was the reason for them, but I’m also quite sure that’s not how it works.

Covid’s been weird in terms of bonding with colleagues at work. Being honest and vulnerable about some sensitive things with someone you’ve never met is quite difficult, even if you keep doing it repeatedly. I wanna say it gets easier each time you do it, but honestly, the difference is so minimal it barely feels noticeable.
Of course, grand scheme of things – nothing matters, or it doesn’t matter as much as I think it does, blah blah blah.

I want to be able to fall asleep without having to do this. I know it’s okay to use writing as a tool to feel better, but I feel weird to think I’m almost dependent on it? Or maybe it’s the kind of a need that’s similar to physical exercise and it’s probably okay to have a need like that.. This barely took twenty minutes so I suppose I could find that time a couple times a week.

025 – spring cleaning

Well, Friday’s here. I’ve had a good week so far. I’ve been wanting to write a post about photography but I think I want that to be a little more organized than most of my other posts. I want it to be readable and I want to be able to share it with a group of people who I think might want to read it or could get some value out of it. For that, I’ll probably have to put in a little more effort than simply writing on a whim. I have notes and content, so I’m not too worried about that, it’s just the structuring that’ll require some effort.

One thing I’m learning about “good” and “bad” weeks is that good weeks require slowing down and reflection as much as the bad ones do. It’s quite easy to get carried away in the general easiness of things sometimes and I worry about how that might leave me in a worse place than a bad week by itself might have. While anxiety generally makes it hard for me to let things go, I at least end up completing my goals and tasks most of the times. When the anxiety’s not around, I often end up living “too” much in the present. I suppose it’s a constant battle to manage the short-term and the long-term. Or maybe this is just the anxiety talking again.

I’ve got an apartment move coming up ahead, and the decision making over it has completely fried my brain. The budget decisions, the wants, the fitting my wants within my budget, it’s all quite exhausting. Fortunately, work’s been a little light this week so I’ve managed to do a bit of house hunting. It’s terribly windy outside, I wish that weren’t the case. I’d have loved to take a walk right now. I went downstairs and had to come back up within five minutes is how chilly it was.

I finally figured out how to add “top posts” and “tag cloud” widgets to this webpage so that’s kinda cool. I don’t know why I’d been struggling with that earlier. The thing I’m unhappy about though is that I wanted to list out of my top posts based on views, but that only takes into account the views from 48 hours and not all-time views, so I had to list them out by likes instead.

On the work front, my repressed interests in product management have come up to the surface again. I’ve always thought that I care more about the “what and the why”s of a product rather than the “how”s. But the thing I don’t love about product management jobs is that they definitely seem to involve a LOT of multi-tasking, organization and meetings, and I don’t know if that’s something I’d enjoy. Thankfully this isn’t a completely uncommon switch that people make, so I know I can find enough material to help me think about this and figure out if makes sense for me.

In other good things, my heart’s been warmed by how much great queer representation I’ve been seeing in the media these days! I was making my mom watch Atypical, which literally has one of the cutest wlw arcs. Followed by Ginny and Georgia, it completely blew me by surprise, and Sara Weisglass does such a phenomenal job in it. Lastly, from the motherland – Bombay Begums – again, very surprised they handled a queer arc gracefully. Have to say it again, my heart’s so full. I was thinking about how the word “representation” doesn’t fully capture the value it actually holds. Representation doesn’t just mean “seeing” more kinds of people and diverse storylines – it basically implies “resonating” with them. Quality representation of diverse emotions is probably an important goal that the word by itself doesn’t convey.

I think a cool thing about writing one of these is that often at some point halfway through I remember everything that’s bothering me about the “things I haven’t done” or the things I haven’t planned for, and I’m almost forced to step out of this and make that list I’m always putting off. Because if I don’t do that, I’d either end up writing out of my feelings about those tasks in the post, or I’d end up giving up the post at that point. And since I know I don’t want to do either of those things, I end up making that list. Which actually ends up helping a ton.

Well, Sunday’s here now and I had a pretty great weekend. It was productive when it comes to my personal goals, it was relaxing, and it was social – it was everything I could ask for in a weekend. No crises this week and I’m quite happy about that. I don’t have much to write about tonight so I’m going to use the last chunk of this post to note that I’m in a good place with my “hobbies” now. I think I’m at the place where I can all all three of photography, music and writing a regular hobby that I find that I’ve been able to stick do and do somewhat regularly. Regularly enough to not really lose touch with all of them. I think the next thing I need to do is setup some good workflows for my work work, so I can make sure to not get lost or off track on that. I also want to set some financial goals and see if I can become a little smarter about my finances so I don’t have to worry about them too often. The next thing I want to take care of my health, I’ve been doing much better from a month ago but I want to take some time to reflect on it.

Word vomit’s done. What should I call it?

023b – frustration over the lack of time is generally about something else

Turns out there are limits to introspection. They’re not as straightforward as “I’m done now, I have nothing more to think about”, but more of a gradual decrease in the number of times you get triggered into introspective loops, daily, weekly, and so on.

Since I was mostly doing personal writing so far, my posting frequency has drastically decreased. I feel emptier now, in good ways though. It’s good for me generally, but not great for this “numbers goal” I had. I might have to consider sitting down to write even when thoughts aren’t coming up naturally. This means there’s going to be deliberate effort needed now. And we all know how bad most of us are at keeping things up when they get even a little tough.

I’ve been watching a lot of Netflix for the last couple weeks. I don’t think I watched a super unhealthy amount, but I do feel some sort of negative feelings around it, which could be worth paying attention to. The good thing is, the show I was watching is over, so I don’t have anything great (or bingeworthy) queued up for the next few weeks.

I think every time I feel frustrated about not being able to meet my writing goals, I think about time-management and end up on the “how do I make time for everything that I want to do?” question. But I think the truth is I’m not frustrated with the apparent lack of time, the frustration is simply about not having anything to write when I do actually sit down to do it. It’s a frustration about being distracted, about thinking of Y and Z while doing X.

I think the frustration is also about not getting enough engagement on the things I’m posting lately. Be it blog posts or song covers. Although I’m aware that I’ve been putting in less effort in “sharing stuff” and engagement is only in limited ways a reflection of the quality of my work, it’s still generally nice to keep getting engagement on it. Even though it might not be enough to create motivation when it doesn’t exist, I think it can keep the flame burning, so to speak.

I’ve been thinking about whether I feel ready for “society” in the post-pandemic world. There’s still a decent amount of time to go before I absolutely have to start working from office, but even then, it’s something that’s on my mind. I’d be excited to see some people, some old hands, some new ones, but I’m also anxious about some of my old worries that used to come up when I was going in to work everyday.

Lastly, feeling grateful. Grateful that I get to do this. A weird random thought about how I probably wouldn’t be able to carry on a lot of the things if I had kids and/or dependents? Not sure whether it’s true but feels like it.

Sometimes I feel like reducing my minimum required words to 500 from 1000 is a little hacky. Since some of the interesting stuff is only uncovered much later into a 1000-word post. I feel like 500 words come around even with some of the surface-level stuff, and it allows me to exit before I can get to the juicy stuff. But I’ll think more about this later. Adios!

021b – cigarettes, shame and the anxious brain

Had a cigarette right now. Been thinking about how the last pack had lasted me more than a year. Which averaged like 2 cigarettes a month. One of my friends said that’s okay since you gotta feel French once in a while. This pack however lasted me around two months. Which averages to roughly 2 cigarettes a week. Not happy with this but I want to plan to not buy another pack unless I’m spending it with friends. Having a pack to myself definitely made it much easier for my frequency to increase.

Wondering what feels so good about smoking. I had to resist myself from lighting another one up when one ended. I managed to, and I feel good about it. But there’s a big doer energy in me right after smoking. I feel good, I feel optimistic, I feel hopeful. I want to feel this way from other things. I want to remember that this temporary relief isn’t natural. That it’s just that – temporary relief, temporary goodness.

Was researching a little bit last night and it does look like the nicotine stimulates the release of dopamine in the brain, so it’d make sense why I’ve been craving it more often these days. Don’t know enough neurochemistry to jam on this but I’m definitely curious about what’s special about this chemical.

I’d been feeling a lot of shame around smoking, however. I managed to separate it out into a) a worry about it becoming an addiction, b) cultural and societal shame around it. So for starters, it’s also nice to be able to smoke without feeling the shame associated with it. I feel like as long as I was feeling the shame, I was also wanting to smoke more. It’s natural to want things you can’t have, right? Once you remove the barriers to getting something, you can plainly see how much you want it. Honestly, it feels easier to let go of it once I ditch that emotion of “can’t have”.

I’m not sure how I feel about publishing something related to smoking on this blog, but since I know I’m kind of following a full-disclosure policy with stuff I write, I know if I don’t publish this, I’d be doing that out of (you guessed it) shame. So I suppose it’s worth completing this and hitting publish.

Since I gotta add around 200 words more – I was thinking about how the anxious brain is never out of thoughts. If my anxiety is cured, what will I write about? Will I still have thoughts to share? There’s definitely a part of me that has been anxious and coping with anxiety for so long that a lot of my identity has been shaped by it (even though I’ve tried hard for it to not be the case). There’s a lot of “good” sides to anxiety, being able to have very sharp focus when stressed, having a ton of foresight, “remembering” a lot? And of course I’m curious (or worried even?) about whether those “good” things will go away if I’m not feeling regularly anxious anymore. Thankfully, someone has written a nice, well-researched post about this as well. And thankfully, I don’t write or do creative work for a living, so I probably don’t have to worry about this as much as those people might have had to. I like the conclusion there, I can probably treat it as an experiment. If I never try, I’ll never know. Maybe everything is an experiment anyway. Like publishing this post.

022 – achieve flow in self-exploration

Yesterday someone told me how “no sleep is better than the sleep you’re not supposed to be sleeping”. We were talking about whether I’m enjoying writing only when I’m escaping into it, or whether I can enjoy it even when I have ample time to do it. So here I am trying to enjoy writing even when I have a couple days off coming up, starting tomorrow.

There’s a few things on my mind, cigarettes and shame, for starters. Shame about cigarettes and smoking, to be clear. But I don’t know if I want to think about it or elaborate on it. The other thing on my mind is loneliness. I don’t know if I want to think about it, either. They could be related, possibly. Maybe it’s smoking alone that’s shameful. It’s definitely easier when you do it with company. Maybe it’s the alienating aspect of it that brings shame sometimes.

I’m definitely getting distracted by loud talking voices coming from outside my room. Music doesn’t help either, since it’s quite distracting also. I never understand how people are able to work or do mental tasks alongside of music. Even instrumental music can be distracting for me, more often than not. Trying not to pick my phone up every five minutes.

Was thinking about how it’s insane that I was doubting my ability do code. I have proofs from various systems that I can, I am “employed” as a software engineer. And yet, imposter syndrome + anxiety had got me doubting myself so intensely. Even if I’m not a “star” programmer, I’m okay. Feels good to see it again.

Whenever I get stuck in the middle of any of these posts, I end up checking the word count. I don’t think it’s a great habit, since it can be discouraging more often than not. It’s like checking results in the middle of an experiment. Should perhaps take into account the problems that come up with the observer effect. I know this isn’t exactly the same thing but it feels like it.

What is loneliness? Can a textual or video conversation resolve it? Can it be broken down into other feelings? I know intellectual starvation was one. Lack of people who understand you and care about you is another. Lack of people you are interested in, could be another too. I think part of loneliness resolution is having enough people you’re curious about. With tons of information coming at us every minute, maybe we forget who we intentionally want to hear and know about. Maybe when there aren’t enough people around me arousing my curiosity, I could make myself the subject. Maybe I can achieve flow in self-exploration. Maybe it’s the right amount of challenging and interesting. And we all know that we are equipped enough to do it.

Recently read a bit about flow again. Saw a video that mentioned how people who achieve significant periods of flow in a day can be happier. I think I’m definitely able to achieve flow with programming, and photography, and writing. For the last few days, I’ve managed to spend 3-4 hours at least, at work, “in the zone”. But it’s not as satisfactory, I feel. My main motivation to get my work done is just that – to get the work done. To reduce the stress and worries. But my motivation with photography and writing is often more positive. Of course, I know the relationship could change if I were doing these things to earn money or make a living, but so far, I don’t need to worry about that. I suppose it’s okay to notice that there’s a difference, at least currently.

I want to explore film photography. There’s so much to research, though. It’s daunting. I really don’t love the research part of things.

Alright, going to keep this short. I enjoyed this. I think I can be happier when I keep reflecting a little bit from time to time. I love uncovering the strongest thoughts and feelings, the ones that persist across hours and days, and are significant enough to come out even when they’re completely unrelated to everything else that I’ve been thinking and talking about so far. The need for an outlet is quite real.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s a thing such as too much self-awareness? Is that possible? Are there downsides to it? Both the therapists I’ve had in the past have often told me I’m quite self-aware. Some of my friends have often told me that too. And I think most people have meant it as a compliment. But I wonder what I feel when I hear it. I think a part of me relates it to narcissism and/or being self-absorbed.
Looked up a few articles. Couldn’t really find any clear downsides apart from potential over-thinking and over-analyzing. Joke’s on you, article – I already do that anyway.

It’s crazy how on the one hand I feel sad about how I don’t know what I like who I like what I want and on the other hand I worry about too much self-awareness. Just goes to show how much nothing is worth believing.

Well, I didn’t actually end up keeping this short. I’m happy, though. Got a long day ahead of me tomorrow. Excited about the outside time I’m planning to get. Maybe it’ll give rise to another post. Or maybe it’ll just be a nice day by itself. Thinking of treating hours and days as opportunities. Time, in general. I suppose. An opportunity to be curious and authentic and brave.

021a – bridge the gaps through personal conversations

Something new I’ve been realizing is that I’ve been intellectually starved. When you’re not talking to enough people who care about similar things as you do, you can forget that it’s a major part of satisfaction. I spend a lot of time thinking about things like gender, sexuality and mental health, stories and narratives but many people around me don’t. The sad thing about some of these topics like these is that they often come up only personally or when someone seems to be demanding things or pushing an “agenda”. And that’s maybe the unfortunate fact with anything that has a history of stigma associated with it, or a “minority” topic in general. For example, nobody questions anyone talking too much about travel, or money, or grades, or games or real estate or family. These are perfectly acceptable dinner table conversations. And yet, these other things can often be “too heavy” for most people.

Talking to a couple friends yesterday about my personal history with anxiety and my sexuality, I realized that I enjoy talking about these things. But I also realized it doesn’t always have to be in the context of me or my history, I would probably enjoy talking about these things even “generally”. But I had to pave the way for these conversations through my own context. It makes me realize how much of “bridging the gap” might have to be done through personal conversations. Social media can be so loud about all of this in this day and age, and yet perhaps people end up paying attention only when they’re more involved, when they’re almost a bit personally (?) involved.

“Finding your people”, then seems to be an important pillar to keep in mind while navigating life. It takes time to realize how much you’re missing until you find the good stuff. Nilan has posed a nice question that caught my eye recently. What do I want my life to prove? Currently, authenticity is something that I really want to swear strongly by. Right now, I really want my life to prove that living authentically (more than we think we can hope to) has no limits. Calling a spade a spade doesn’t make you socially ignorant, there’s reasons why people don’t do it, and those reasons deserve to be questioned.

And while wanting to live authentically should need no justification, it seems like finding our people would also be 10x easier if we did operate extra authentically all the time?

This also seems to me like a nice spin on vulnerability. What is vulnerability if not simply being authentic? Let’s normalize being authentic. It doesn’t need to be an act of courage. It doesn’t need to be a conscious effort. There’s no limits, and the benefits seem worth it. I don’t think it always needs to happen through social media or the internet but I think these mediums make it easier to reach or find the people we wouldn’t have found as easily in our own limited circles.

Also, one thing I’d like to tell you if you’re someone who’s practicing authenticity but feel like it’s not always reciprocated – keep at it. Often the seeds of such efforts bear fruit only a few months later, but know that there’s always someone who’s noticing it, and getting themselves ready to reciprocate.

020b – 20,000 words + keep connecting the dots

Well, after this post I’ll have written 20k words in the last month, and I’m kind of proud of having reached this milestone! I know the pace for the rest 80k is almost certainly not going to be the same, not even sure if I’ll reach that point, but it’s good to have come so far. I think I can afford to reward myself with another meta-post.

Words flow easier now, thoughts get stylized easier too. Maybe some of it is placebo, maybe some of it’s real. Regardless, I love it. It’s definitely easier to write a 500 word post as opposed to a 1000 word post, but it’s a compromise I’m okay making from time to time. Happy that it allows me to keep moving.

I have more drafts sitting in my word editors now, I have more half-formed stories waiting to be completed. It’s a good feeling. I have enjoyed this process with photography and music before, but it’s nice to be able to enjoy it with writing too. Part of me worries that at some point I’ll get sick of writing meta-posts and sick of writing about my own thoughts and feelings, but another part of me knows that when (or if) I weed through all of it some fun stuff might come up too.

Since I’m sitting here reflecting again, I want to think about the few things that might keep me going forward:

Creating feedback loops for writing more
Thinking about what people might want to read
Organizing and structuring more / Writing about a single topic as opposed to only free-writing
Not being afraid of writing about scarier (for the lack of a better word) topics like loneliness, heartbreak, sadness, depression, anxiety, therapy (I do a decent amount of it but it’s still not enough.)

I’m watching my mother go crazy with knitting (a hobby she picked back up recently, after many years) and I feel aligned with this stint of hers in some ways. She makes a clothing item a day, I write a post once every few days. It’s all about connecting the dots, isn’t it? Dots that don’t necessarily connect for anyone else, except perhaps our own selves.

Sometimes I think everything can connect, if you want it to. Every little action can be a metaphor, every word a story. Every story a goldmine, every person a landscape. Every landscape art, every piece of art magic.

Don’t really have much to write about anymore so I’m distracting myself with food and coffee. Not the best idea, perhaps. But it’s not that easy to write a 100 words more when you’re kind of out of thoughts.
I’ve been going on a lot of walks lately, it’s a nice habit that I want to keep up. Getting that time and space to think, think about difficult things without necessarily having to feel the related physical feelings. It’s peaceful in a way very few activities can be.

019b – the mundane is all we have

Thoughts think themselves. Words write themselves. Is this what they call free writing? Just letting your vessel do its thing? Thoughts can create feelings. Feelings can create thoughts. By that logic one can never be out of words. And maybe it’s true. Maybe we’re never out of words. Maybe it’s just the question of which words we want to share, and which we don’t. Is writer’s block real then? Or does it become real only for writers who need to get paid for their words?

I was thinking about how vulnerability on the internet doesn’t really get easier – not as much I’d expected. I went back to doing a bit of private journaling and realized I preferred it. I thought it’d have gotten easier by now. This could be another reason that I’ve been leaning towards trying to fictionalize my thoughts. Or preferring to write fiction, even though it’s tougher and slower.

Any person who’s successful in any field will tell you to do as much of the thing as you can. And yet, it’s hard to subscribe to quantity as a goal by itself. I know I need to set up more feedback loops to stay motivated. Intrinsic feedback and motivation is not sufficing, I know it’ll eventually die out. Or I at least need them for a push when I’m low on the intrinsic motivation.

I scoff at the mundane sometimes. It feels overused and weary and tiring. The green of the leaves, the blue of the waves, isn’t it all used up by now? But I know there’s a reframe there, it’s just about the arrangement and patterns. There’s just seven basic notes in the land of music too, and yet people have created beautiful things out of those.

You gotta keep practicing, that’s the only thing I can tell myself. That’s the main reason I want to keep doing this. And to remind the 5th grade me that I haven’t forgotten her. I haven’t forgotten how she wrote an essay for fun and thoroughly impressed the secondary English teacher who had no idea who she was, but was eventually happy to learn that she was one of her favorite students’ younger sister. To remind the 9th grade me who’d discovered the world of fan-fiction for the first time and was completely mind-blown for years to come. So much of who we are is where we’ve been, so sometimes I find comfort in drawing inspiration from the past.

I suppose we all like sharing stories, sharing parts of ourselves with parts of the world. Some of us like to do so with crowds and tables full of people, some of us perhaps with fewer people. Some of us from behind our screens, some of us from right in the spotlight. Engagement (that social media easily provides) is nice, I’m not going to deny that, but there’s definitely something significantly more satisfactory about writing a post of a decent length. Of course, I’m the one who gets to decide what that length is for me, so it’s all chill.

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References: [1]

003 – work and the “corporate world”

I’ve been feeling terribly stressed at work. It’s been a few months, and I haven’t quit yet. Multiple reasons for it of course – the pandemic, lack of a plan, visa issues, the effort of team-switching, the fear and possibility of quitting but still feeling equally bad about life and of course, sunk-cost.

As I contemplate, I of course think about what changed over the last (almost) 8 years. I’m pretty sure I never loved programming, but I never disliked it as much as I seem to be doing these days. I suppose I always saw programming as a means to an end and the ends aren’t exciting anymore.

The ends at the time were “solving cool tech problems” and maybe a “successful career in tech”, or so I told myself. But they were also

money,
prestige,
communal, societal and familial validation and
this general, vague, weird idea of success.

Well – I have those things now – so the external motivators are gone. Of course, I hope there was some sort of intrinsic motivator of wanting to be good at whatever I do, but it seems like that’s not enough (anymore).

So, the pandemic really did bring a bunch of shit to the forefront.

There’s a part of me which wonders how I ended up here. Well, my upbringing, of course. I’m sure there’s people who knew they weren’t cut out for this. But I didn’t. And maybe I could have been. But I don’t feel it anymore.

I spoke to my sister-in-law recently about all of this and as I started talking along the lines of “well I’m not sure, maybe I don’t need to derive joy out of my work?” and she, very strongly, disagreed. And I’ve been speaking to a few people about this, and I’ve received strong opinions on both sides of this, and I’m still very impressionable, so I keep swinging. (Side-rant about how kids can be so impressionable, how does one navigate the danger of imprinting a false belief in a child’s mind?)

But then I think about what else I could do instead. I’ve been playing around with the idea of writing and/or photography. Those are the two things I’ve enjoyed in the last few years as my hobbies. And I do really enjoy both the activities – of course I don’t know whether I can get paid for those or not, and I don’t know whether I have the skills to even consider those options (and here’s the funny part – i’m really scared of the answer to both of these questions being “no”). But the longer I don’t quit my current job, the longer I’m putting of really seeking the answers to these questions.

I have a few thoughts about writing. I finally started these word-vomits, just as a test to see whether I can even write. And the idea currently is that we concentrate on quantity, not quality. (Because we know that generally works). But what happens once that’s done? What happens once I do write a 100 word-vomits? I’m supposed to increase my goal. I think I’m already scared that I’m not going to want to go further. What if I’d done everything right, and still failed? What if I’d gotten that writing degree, and still failed? I guess it doesn’t matter.

People often say there is no end to introspection. If that’s the case, a 100 word-vomits should be pretty easy. If not, it’ll be cool to have gotten everything off my chest.

Just checked my word count on this. I’ve been noticing a pattern. I’m able to get to 500-600 words on pretty much anything that I care about, pretty easily. How do I get to a 1000 words though? At some point it might start feeling forced to the reader. But the whole point of this project is to not worry about the reader. I find that I’m worrying about the quality again. I guess this what they call practice? Maybe after a few of these, I’ll be able to get to 700-800 words more easily. Feeling a little bit of excitement about maybe reaching that point. But I worry – if it’s the same thing happening again. I have a goal in mind, I’m writing to get to that goal. What happens when (or if) I don’t care about that goal anymore? I suppose I have to give myself the freedom to set potentially meaningless goals, even if they don’t result in anything. That’s what’s hard about life. To come back to the present, again and again and again. It’s kind of a meditation, I suppose.

My word-count tool just told me that the reading level on this is “9th-10th grade”. Oops. Well, I should change my tool. I’m not looking for judgement yet. I only need to focus on quantity.

I find this “stream of consciousness” style of writing very interesting. I can’t think of anything else that can capture something in such a raw manner? I can’t imagine a self-portrait which captures someone clicking (or painting) that self-portrait.

I’m noticing how my mood can affect the structure of a word vomit as well. I have a couple of these that are super clear, logical and structured. And I have a couple which are pretty all over the place. Might just call them public journal entries. And maybe that’s okay, I don’t really want to think about whether these might benefit anyone else. I can just think about the benefits I might reap from these. Maybe I’ll feel interesting things at the end of a 100,000 words. Maybe I won’t.

But I am also enjoying how thinking about wanting to write a few more words does not stress me out. I am just observing. And it’s easy to observe, it’s an inbuilt ability in humans, I believe. I am an ornithologist and my thoughts are like migratory seagulls. I am a scientist and my sinking heart is Newton’s falling apple. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero.